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ONE  WOMAN'S 

WORK  FOR 
FARM  WOMEN 

BT    JENNIE    BUELL 


ONE  WOMAN'S  WORK 
FOR  FARM  WOMEN 


The  Story  of  Mary  A.  Mayo  s  Part 
in  Rural  Social  Movements 


BY  JENNIE    BUELL 


SECOND    PRINTING 


WHITCOMB  &  BARROWS 

BOSTON,   1912 


COPYRIGHT,  1908 
BY  JENNIE  BUELL 

AND 

WHITCOMB  &  BARROWS 


COMPOSITION  AND  PRESSWORK  i 

THOMAS  TODD 
14  BEACON  ST.,  BOSTON,  MASS. 


DEDICATED  TO 
FARM  WOMEN 
EVERYWHERE 


274689 


FOREWORD 

THIS  land  of  ours  is  marvelously  rich 
in  mine,  in  water  power,  in  forest,  in  soil; 
but  her  greatest  asset  is  her  people.  Agri- 
culture is  America's  largest  single  indus- 
try; but  greater  than  agriculture  is  the 
farmer.  One-third  of  our  toilers  are  farm- 
ers; one-half  of  our  people  live  under  rural 
conditions.  The  farm  home  is  the  root, 
therefore,  of  great  things  for  America;  it 
has  been  the  nursery  of  great  men  and 
noble  women.  Its  sanctity,  its  joy,  its  whole 
welfare,  in  fact,  constitute  one  of  our  fun- 
damental problems. 

Mrs.  Mayo  not  only  realized  this  fact, 
but  she  had  the  power  of  reaching  the 
hearts  of  those  who  dwell  in  the  farm 
home.  She  knew  their  trials,  their  dis- 
couragements, their  hopes  and  ambitions, 
their  struggles  to  educate  their  children, 
their  attempts  to  beautify  and  adorn.  She 
renewed  within  them  their  ideals,  and  she 
told  them  how  to  realize  their  dreams. 

The  story  of  her  life  is  worth  writing 


VI  FOREWORD 

and  worth  reading,  both  because  of  what 
she  did  and  for  what  she  was.  This  little 
book,  written  by  one  who  knew  her  inti- 
mately and  who  sympathized  with  her 
every  ideal  and  effort,  should  be  read  in 
every  farm  home  in  America.  Indeed,  it 
should  be  read  by  all  who  love  the  simplic- 
ity of  rural  life,  or  who  delight  in  high 
service  unselfishly  rendered.  Mrs.  Mayo's 
work  needs  doing  in  every  state.  Few  have 
her  native  gifts  for  this  particular  service, 
but  her  pattern  is  good  and  beautiful. 

I  was  one  of  "her  boys"  and  one  of  the 
first  to  call  her  "Mother  Mayo."  I  owe 
much  to  her,  more  than  she  knew,  and  per- 
haps more  than  I  realize.  I  rejoice  that 
her  character  and  her  toil  are  to  be  set 
forth  in  so  winsome  a  way. 

KENYON  L.  BUTTERFIELD. 

President 

Massachusetts  Agricultural  College 

Amherst,   Mass. 


ONE  WOMAN'S  WORK  FOR 
FARM  WOMEN 


/  love  everybody  so  much.  I  have  wanted 
to  help  people  to  be  kinder,  truer,  sweeter. 
And  there  is  so  much  to  do! 

MARY  A.   MAYO. 


ONE  WOMAN'S  WORK  FOR 
FARM  WOMEN 

"THE  little  brown  woman  from  the 
farm,"  she  once  called  herself.  When  she 
was  gone,  I  suppose  that  more  than  a  score 
of  men  and  women  in  the  thick  of  life's 
fight  still  treasured  certain  little  notes, 
written  in  her  fine,  neat  hand,  which  were 
signed  "Mother  Mayo."  They  treasured 
them,  not  because  she  had  made  for  her- 
self a  name  widely  known,  or  had  helped 
others,  but  because  she  had  meant  so  much 
to  them  individually.  She  had  believed  in 
them  personally,  and  made  them  feel  that 
she  did.  Once,  as  she  passed  a  pioneer's 
cabin,  from  her  car  window  she  caught  a 
glimpse  of  a  face,  the  face  of  a  young  girl, 
whom  she  afterward  met  and  remembered. 
That  girl,  grown  to  womanhood,  cherished 
the  memory  of  the  impression  she  had 
made  on  the  sympathetic  heart  of  this 
woman,  whose  own  life  was  already  rich 
in  friendships.  A  young  mother — not  one, 
but  many — looked  upon  her  cluster  of  chil- 


2  ONE  WOMAN'S  WORK 

dren  and  pondered,  "  Because  of  her  I  am 
a  better  mother."  A  man  who  had  cleared 
and  tilled  a  farm  in  the  north  country,  and 
in  the  face  of  poverty  had  sought  to  rear 
and  cultivate  his  family,  said:  "She  was 
my  friend.  I  never  had  another  like  her." 
A  small  regiment  of  wayward  girls,  whose 
lives  she  had  touched,  called  her  "blessed," 
each  saying,  "  She  was  my  friend."  Another, 
one  of  "her  boys,"  whose  life  problems  had 
all  been  spread  before  her  and  counseled 
over — a  man  now  standing  among  the 
strong  and  successful  on  a  main  thorough- 
fare—  laid  this  tribute  beside  her  hushed 
form,  "I  loved  to  call  her  'Mother  Mayo/ 
for  she  seemed  like  a  second  mother  to  me." 
Because  she  affected  men  and  women  in 
like  manner,  collectively  as  well  as  singly, 
she  was  able  to  exert  a  lasting  influence 
upon  certain  wide  movements  of  people,  of 
farm  people  most  of  all.  In  some  instances 
she  initiated  those  movements,  or  "moth- 
ered" them  to  such  a  degree  that  their 
getting  rooted  in  permanency  is  coupled 
inseparably  with  her  name.  To  tell  some- 
thing of  these  movements  and  of  this  par- 
ticular woman,  this  story  has  been  written. 


FOR  FARM   WOMEN  3 

It  is  the  story  of  a  Michigan  woman,  but 
she  might  have  lived  in  New  England,  or 
Oregon,  or  Texas,  and  the  work  she  accom- 
plished would  have  been  much  the  same. 
"All  root  problems,"  says  President  Roose- 
velt, "are  alike."  This  our  farm  friend 
clearly  understood.  Because  she  knew  the 
experiences  and  needs  from  having  lived 
them  all — child,  teacher,  wife,  mother,  and 
neighbor  in  an  inland  rural  community- 
she  felt  that  she  held  the  key  to  every  one's 
life  situated  as  hers  was.  Through  the  sym- 
pathy engendered  by  such  knowledge  she 
dared  discover  men  and  women  to  them- 
selves. Having  found  for  herself  a  better 
way  than  to  follow  in  the  common,  rutted 
roads  of  farm  folks,  she  was  able  to  help 
others  and  put  them  into  contact  with 
something  vital  outside  of  themselves. 


.«_, 

r 


Early  Life 

Mary  Anne  Bryant  was  born  on  a  farm 
in  Marshall  township,  seven  miles  from  the 
city  of  Battle  Creek,  Michigan,  May  25, 
1845.  Her  mother  was  from  England,  her 
father  from  New  England — both  stanch 
and  sturdy  stock.  In  her  sight,  and  indeed 


4  ONE  WOMAN'S  WORK 

in  that  of  many  less  prejudiced  people,  her 
mother  was  an  almost  perfect  embodi- 
ment of  noble,  well-balanced  womanhood. 
"My  mother  never  scolded"  -this  was  the 
daughter's  simple  testimony;  and  it  was  to 
this  mother  that,  in  later  years  as  in  youth, 
she  was  wont  to  go  for  recuperation  and 
fresh  faith  in  humanity,  when  she  came 
back  home  after  a  hard,  wearisome  journey 
out  among  the  people  she  sought  to  help. 
This  mother  was  the  refuge  and  counselor 
of  all  her  life,  outliving  her  by  two  years. 
Her  father's  death  occurred  several  years 
earlier,  and  was  to  this  fond  daughter  such 
a  great  stretching  of  the  ties  that  bound  her 
to  him  that  again  and  again  she  cried  out 
in  the  silence  for  him.  But  at  last  the 
mystery  of  the  unseen  became  to  her  a  nec- 
essary and  beautiful  part  of  her  present 
life. 

Little  Mary  was  tutored,  while  very 
young,  in  a  private  school  taught  by  two 
maiden  aunts  from  New  England.  Who 
knows  whether  here  were  not  inculcated 
those  niceties  of  manner  and  behavior  that 
were  always  among  her  noticeable  charac- 
teristics? Later,  she  attended  the  Battle 


FOR  FARM   WOMEN  5 

Creek  high  school,  graduated,  and  was 
teaching  a  district  school  at  seventeen.  A 
business  man,  who  was  a  schoolmate  with 
her,  tells  how,  when  Mary  Bryant  recited 
or  read  an  essay  in  school,  all  the  pupils 
stopped  to  listen,  for  "she  was  always  sure 
to  have  something  interesting  to  say." 

Thus  she  came  to  young  womanhood  in 
the  vortex  of  the  nation's  greatest  struggle 
for  existence.  She  saw  her  lover  go  out 
from  the  peace  of  their  Northern  country 
neighborhood  into  the  clash  and  conflict  of 
three  fearsome  years — saw  him  go  out,  too, 
with  her  love  only  half  confessed;  but  on 
his  return — that  lover  boy  grown  into  the 
soldier  man — she  yielded  her  heart  unre- 
servedly and,  on  the  night  of  Lincoln's 
assassination,  April  14,  1865,  put  her  life 
into  the  keeping  of  Perry  Mayo.  No 
wonder,  then,  that  these  two  were  always 
filled  with  patriotism  and  zeal,  and  that 
they  measured  deeds,  ideas,  and  people  by 
broad  gauges  and  large  bounds.  Though 
she  was  then  untraveled,  she  had  already 
participated  in  her  country's  deepest  ex- 
periences. Because  of  this  it  was  impossi- 
ble that  her  horizon  should  ever  be  bounded 


6  ONE  WOMAN'S  WORK 

by  the  walls  of  the  modest  log  house  in 
which  she  and  her  husband  began  their 
homemaking.  Their  hearts  and  interests 
were  broadened  to  those  of  humanity  at 
large,  and  were  quick  to  respond  to  every 
pulse  beat  of  the  neighborhood  life.  The 
little  log  house  across  the  road  from  Mrs. 
Mayo's  childhood  home  still  stands  in  a 
field  adjacent  to  the  grounds  of  the  larger 
frame  house  that  was  built  after  a  few 
years,  when  crops  had  yielded  well  and 
times  had  become  prosperous. 

The  Mother  Heart 

Mrs.  Mayo's  heart  was  the  true"mother 
heart,"  and  would  have  been  so  had  she 
never  borne  children  herself.  The  one  boy 
and  one  girl  who  came  into  the  home  as  its 
very  own  did  not  absorb  the  overflow  of 
her  maternal  instincts.  One  and  another 
of  her  relatives,  when  no  more  than  babies, 
were  taken  within  the  charmed  circle  of 
her  home  nest,  and  nurtured  till  their  own 
homes  could  receive  and  care  for  them 
again. 

Thus  the  young  woman's  hands  were 
kept  full,  and  her  powers  of  execution  and 


FOR   FARM   WOMEN  7 

endurance  developed  by  the  experience  of 
motherhood  while  she  was  performing  her 
own  household  duties.  Nor  were  these 
duties  slight,  for  these  two  ambitious  young 
people  had  to  earn  everything  for  them- 
selves with  their  own  hands.  But  Mrs. 
Mayo  was  not  one  to  shirk  any  task  because 
it  stood  on  the  far  side  of  the  line  custom 
had  decreed  was  the  boundary  of  "woman's 
work."  If  her  young  husband  needed  a 
"lift"  at  the  barn,  or  even  in  the  field,  she 
was  ready  to  do  her  best.  She  loved  the 
out-of-doors,  and,  along  with  her  indoor 
cares,  always  took  pride  in  her  poultry,  her 
dairy,  and  her  garden.  No  labor  was 
menial  to  her.  She  did  not  know  "drudg- 
ery," for  very  intimate  in  her  mind  was  the 
connection  between  the  deed  and  those  for 
whom  it  was  wrought.  Even  during  those 
last  bitter  months  of  her  life,  when  pain 
had  tortured  her  strong  body  to  the  utter- 
most, she  persisted  in  keeping  a  few  of  the 
"chores"  at  the  barn  for  her  own.  They 
were  her  only  "rest,"  she  said,  taking  her 
out  in  the  air  away  from  the  precious 
daughter's  bedside  of  pain,  a  place  that 
racked  the  courage  of  both  to  its  utmost 


8  ONE  WOMAN'S  WORK 

limit.  Here,  daily,  during  a  few  minutes' 
respite  from  her  self-appointed  nursing,  she 
drew  strength  for  her  return  to  it.  "I  pray 
as  I  milk — is  it  wrong,  do  you  think?" 
pathetically  ran  one  of  her  last  notes,  which 
she  penciled  in  the  watches  of  the  night. 
Nothing  could  show  the  temper  of  this 
woman  more  surely  than  this  admission 
that,  even  when  too  weary  and  wasted  to  do 
more  than  force  herself  to  keep  about,  she 
still  combined  these  "breathing  spells"  with 
some  labor  of  the  hands,  in  order  to  lighten 
the  tasks  of  others. 

Bread,  then  Books 

In  those  first  years  after  the  war,  Amer- 
ican agriculture,  with  every  other  industry, 
was  struggling  to  its  feet.  Among  country 
people,  in  general,  it  was  a  question,  first 
of  all,  of  land  and  roof  and  bread  to  eat. 
In  these  conditions,  as  we  have  seen,  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Mayo  were  planted.  But  they 
struck  deeper  root  than  mere  annuals  which 
live  only  from  season  to  season.  Though 
they  valued  well  enough  the  comforts  of  a 
good  home  and  freedom  from  debt,  they 
sought,  also,  a  margin  for  travel  and  cul- 


FOR   FARM   WOMEN  9 

ture.  A  sense  of  this  deeper  purpose  in 
their  lives  came  through  a  common  enough 
circumstance.  Mrs.  Mayo  told  me  about  it 
long  afterward,  on  the  first  Sabbath  evening 
I  spent  with  the  family  in  their  pleasant 
sitting  room,  surrounded  by  homely  com- 
forts and  choice  reading  matter.  It  was  a 
tragic  tale,  though  in  such  humble  garb  you 
would  not  'recognize  it  as  anything  heroic 
until  you  got  your  bearings.  It  was  the 
old  yet  ever  new  story  of  rebellion  against 
the  tyranny  of  brawn,  and  the  decision  to 
invest  brains  with  leadership. 

"One  day,  in  a  store,"  she  told  me,  "I 
met  an  old  classmate,  who  remarked  that 
she  presumed,  as  I  had  married  a  farmer, 
about  all  I  had  to  do,  or  did  do,  was  to.  work 
hard  and  make  lots  of  good  butter.  While 
riding  home  with  Mr.  Mayo,  I  kept  think- 
ing it  over.  I  knew  that  I  did  work  hard 
and  that  I  made  good  butter,  but  it  made 
me  indignant  to  think  that  this  was  the 
measure  of  my  life,  and  that  of  every  farm- 
er's wife.  We  both  decided  we  would  do 
something,  but  what  we  did  not  know.  We 
took  out  our  old  school  books  and  together 
we  studied  during  that  winter;  there  was 


io  ONE  WOMAN'S  WORK 

nothing  else  to  do.  We  had  heard  of  the 
Grange  as  an  organization  for  farmers  and 
their  wives,  but  did  not  know  anything 
about  it.  When  there  was  one  organized  in 
our  neighborhood,  Mr.  Mayo  and  I  joined 
it.  It  did  not  strike  me  well  at  first,  and  I 
do  not  think  it  did  Mr.  Mayo.  It  was  all 
for  buying  direct  from  the  manufacturers. 
There  was  little  that  was  educational  about 
it,  being  scarcely  more  than  a  round  of  rou- 
tine business.  The  lecturer's  office,  as  maker 
of  programs  for  the  meetings,  was  nearly 
ignored.  Indeed,  there  was  nothing  really 
helpful  in  the  first  Grange  to  which  we 
belonged.  However,  Battle  Creek  Grange 
was  taking  advanced  work,  and  how  I  en- 
joyed it!" 

This  was  the  beginning.  How  little 
either  of  these  two  realized  that  this  step 
of  taking  out  their  old  school  books  meant 
the  initiation  of  a  new  epoch  in  their  his- 
tories, one  that  was  to  push  them  out  of  the 
stagnant  pools  of  farm  isolation  and  set 
them  in  the  currents  of  the  world's  work 
and  friendships.  Today  it  all  came  back  to 
me,  what  this  had  meant  to  them,  when  a 
young  farmer's  wife,  with  her  four-year-old 


FOR   FARM   WOMEN  I  I 

son  on  her  lap,  said  to  me,  "  Charles  and  I 
are  daring  each  other  to  get  out  our  geome- 
tries this  winter  to  see  if  we  have  forgotten 
all  we  ever  knew!"  In  such  a  resolution 
as  that,  if  carried  out,  lies  folded  the  con- 
quest of  the  brutal  and  fierce  within  one, 
and  the  installing  within  the  home  of  that 
which  shall  drive  out  of  it  drudgery  and 
loneliness  and  low  aim,  not  only  for  the 
parents,  but  in  large  measure  for  the  chil- 
dren and  others  who  come  within  its  influ- 
ence. Such  people  and  such  homes  have 
ever  been  the  bulwarks  of  agriculture  and 
the  pioneers  of  a  cultured  rural  life.  Thou- 
sands of  country  homes  are  the  scenes  of 
just  such  triumph  of  mind  over  matter. 
Every  such  subjugation  has  connected  with 
it  a  story  of  broadening  paths  and  pleasanter 
places.  This  is  the  story  of  but  one  of  them. 

Outside  the  Home,  but  Close  By 

Mrs.  Mayo's  study  at  home  soon  led  her 
to  reach  out  into  the  neighborhood  to  gather 
the  young  people  into  a  reading  club.  Here, 
by  bringing  these  young  minds  into  contact 
with  genuine  literature,  she  wrought  a  beau- 
tiful work,  for  she  knew  how  to  bring  the 


12  ONE  WOMAN'S  WORK 

best  of  it  to  the  humblest  listener.  She 
was  meanwhile  conducting  a  corresponding 
work,  on  the  spiritual  plane,  in  the  country 
Sabbath  school,  where  for  years  she  taught 
the  young  people's  class.  She  herself  was 
always  young  of  heart,  and  gay  as  a  girl 
when  occasion  warranted;  but  there  was  no 
frivolity  in  her  gayety.  Beneath  it  all  there 
was  always  a  consciousness  of  the  under- 
currents in  the  lives  that  touched  hers,  even 
for  a  brief  time.  "I  believe,"  she  said  once, 
when  speaking  of  later  work  among  friends 
of  an  hour  or  a  few  days,  "I  believe  every 
soul  is  waiting  and  fairly  longing  to  have 
us  speak  to  it  of  its  eternal  interests.  If  we 
only  knew  how  to  say  the  right  word!" 

After  the  study  of  old  text-books,  she 
took  up  for  her  own  culture  the  work  of 
the  Chautauqua  Reading  Circle,  and  com- 
pleted the  four  years'  home  study  course. 
Because  she  aimed  to  turn  whatever  she  had 
to  account  for  others,  she  felt  impelled  to 
constantly  feed  her  own  mind  by  daily  read- 
ing and  study,  no  matter  how  hard-pressed 
the  hours  were  with  much  bodily  serving. 
This  habit  she  continued,  ranging  widely 
over  the  fields  of  literature  and  public 


FOR   FARM   WOMEN  13 

affairs.  Mr.  Mayo's  instincts  led  him  into 
politics  and  public  offices,  and  his  wife  kept 
in  close  sympathy  with  him,  possessing  a 
ready  knowledge  of  the  subjects  he  was 
most  interested  in,  as  well  as  of  those  along 
her  own  favorite  lines  of  reading. 

A  New  Era 

It  was  in  these  days  that  the  Grange 
movement  was  inaugurated  among  farmers 
throughout  the  land.  Because  it  meant  so 
much  for  these  two  and  was,  withal,  so  sig- 
nificant to  the  farming  class,  I  must  tell 
briefly  what  it  was  and  how  it  came 
about. 

During  the  fearful  exhaustion  of  re- 
sources and  depression  of  spirits  brought 
about  by  the  Civil  War,  no  class  of  people 
suffered  more  than  those  in  farm  homes. 
Many  of  them  were  heavily  in  debt,  and  in 
thousands  of  cases  the  life  of  the  head  of  the 
family  had  been  given  to  save  the  Union. 
They  led  lonely  lives,  these  country  peo- 
ple, solitude  often  breeding  in  them  the 
narrowness,  jealousies,  and  discontent  that 
thrive  most  rankly  in  social  separateness. 
In  the  South  there  was  still  more  ground 


14  ONE  WOMAN'S  WORK 

inoculated  with  these  deadening  tendencies. 
Many  of  the  farms  there  had  been  actual 
battlefields.  The  laborers  had  been  freed 
from  obligation  to  serve  their  former 
masters,  and  the  owners,  unaccustomed  to 
manual  toil,  were  in  straits  of  mind  and 
purse.  These  were  the  conditions  as  one 
Mr.  O.  H.  Kelley  found  them  when  he 
was  sent  into  the  South  by  President  John- 
son to  investigate  and  report  upon  the  situa- 
tion of  Southern  farmers.  Mr.  Kelley  went 
from  plantation  to  plantation  and  into 
homes,  mingling  with  their  families.  He 
became  most  of  all  impressed  with  the  ban 
of  social  ostracism  that  rested  upon  the 
family  of  the  American  farmer  because  of 
his  calling  and  necessary  environment.  He 
came  back  to  Washington,  made  his  report, 
and  returned  to  his  place  as  a  clerk  in  the 
employ  of  the  government.  This  did  not, 
however,  free  his  mind  from  the(conviction 
that  there  was  needed  some  great  cohesive 
force  to  bring  the  agricultural  people  to- 
gether and  make  them  to  know  one  another. 
Their  needs  were  akin;  their  successes  and 
failures  were  along  the  same  lines ;  they  had 
hopes,  ambitions,  and  disappointments  iden- 


FOR  FARM   WOMEN  15 

tical  with  other  people;  but,  in  the  neces- 
sary separateness  of  their  living,  they  were 
largely  unconscious  of  these  facts.  Espe- 
cially did  they  need  to  know  that  their  ex- 
periences were  common  to  those  of  their 
own  vocation.  They  needed  to  know  that 
others  had  troubles  with  calves  and  chickens 
and  children;  that  others  built  hopes  on 
crops  of  hay  and  harvested  bins  of  grain; 
that  others  carried  scars  of  frustrated  ambi- 
tions and  dreamed  of  better  schooling  for 
their  boys  and  girls  than  they  themselves 
had  had.  The  direct  result  of  seeing  these 
needs  was  that  Mr.  Kelley  united  six  other 
men  and  one  woman  (his  niece,  Miss  Carrie 
Hall)  with  him  in  an  endeavor  to  institute 
some  plan  by  which  this  largest  class  of  our 
people  might  in  some  measure  be  unified. 
Though  constituting,  at  that  time,  more 
than  one-half  the  population  of  the  country, 
individual  families  were  little  more  than 
scattered  units,  making,  as  a  whole,  only  a 
granular  structure.  They  were  the  prey  of 
whatever  combined  against  them  in  the 
business  and  political  world.  Worst  of  all, 
they  were  the  victims  of  their  own  inclina- 
tions to  social,  mental,  and  moral  inactivity^ 


1 6  ONE  WOMAN'S  WORK 

Real  Help  Organized 

The  undertaking  promoted  by  Mr. 
Kelley,  and  designated  as  "The  Grange," 
or  "Order  of  Patrons  of  Husbandry,"  was 
launched  in  1867,  but  made  no  appreciable 
growth  until  in  the  early  seventies.  Its  aim 
was  to  bring  farmers  to  see  that  their  happi- 
ness depended  upon  prosperity,  which  in 
turn  rested  upon  knowledge,  and  that  the 
ultimate  object  of  this  organization  was  to 
bind  them  together  in  a  unity  of  endeavor 
to  secure  this  knowledge.  This  was  the  sub- 
stance of  a  very  brief  preamble  to  the  con- 
stitution as  originally  sent  out.  IA  few  years 
later,  in  1874,  a  "Declaration  of  Purposes" 
was  published,  which  has  remained  the 
guiding  star  for  the  high-minded,  if  some- 
what conservative,  course  of  this  farmers' 
society — the  only  movement  of  the  kind 
that  for  forty  years  has  kept  intact  a  chain 
of  organizations  connecting  the  individual,- 
through  its  subordinate,  county,  and  state 
Granges,  with  a  national  body. 

For  a  considerable  number  of  years  in 
the  history  of  the  Grange,  as  it  is  yet  in  some 
instances,  the  feature  of  commercial  co- 
operation for  financial  betterment  was 


FOR  FARM   WOMEN  IJ 

emphasized;  but  we  find  in  the  " Declara- 
tion" that  the  first  specific  object  set  forth 
is,  "To  develop  a  better  and  higher  man- 
hood and  womanhood  among  ourselves." 
Even  the  second  object  named  is  not  "mer- 
chandise or  much  gain";  instead,  it  is,  "To 
enhance  the  comforts  and  attractions  of  our 
homes,  and  strengthen  our  attachments  to 
our  pursuits."  Then  follow  in  order  other 
reasons  for  the  founding  of  such  an  institu- 
tion among  farmers,  as  stated  in  the  follow- 
ing words : 

"To  foster  mutual  understanding  and 
cooperation.  To  maintain  inviolate  our 
laws,  and  to  emulate  each  other  in  labor,  to 
hasten  the  good  time  coming.  To  reduce 
our  expenses,  both  individual  and  corporate. 
To  buy  less  and  produce  more,  in  order  to 
make  our  farms  sustaining.  To  diversify 
our  crops,  and  crop  no  more  than  we  can 
cultivate.  To  condense  the  weight  of  our 
exports,  selling  less  in  the  bushel  and  more 
on  hoof  and  in  fleece;  less  in  lint  and  more 
in  warp  and  wool.  To  systematize  our 
work,  and  calculate  intelligently  on  prob- 
abilities. To  discountenance  the  credit  sys- 
tem, the  mortgage  system,  the  fashion 
system,  and  every  other  system  tending  to 
prodigality  and  bankruptcy." 


1 8  ONE  WOMAN'S  WORK 

To  actualize  these  objects  in  the  homes 
and  lives  of  its  members,  semi-monthly 
meetings  were  instituted,  a  ritual  was  pre- 
pared calling  for  thirteen  officers  to  execute 
it,  and  nominal  fees  and  dues  were  levied, 
with  regular  reports  and  dues  to  the  higher 
Granges  in  the  chain)  In  the  initial  call  to 
organize  occurred  the  following  words, « 
which  have  proven  prophetic: 

"Unity  of  action  cannot  be  acquired 
without  discipline,  and  discipline  cannot  be 
enforced  without  significant  organization; 
hence,  we  have  a  ceremony  of  initiation 
which  binds  us  in  mutual  fraternity  as  with 
a  band  of  iron ;  but,  although  its  influence  is 
so  powerful,  its  application  is  as  gentle  as 
that  of  the  silken  thread  that  binds  a  wreath 
of  flowers." 

Adhering  to  these  principles,  the  Grange 
grew  more  and  more  educational  in  its 
scope,  although  casting  of!  none  of  its  prac- 
ticality. At  the  same  time  it  shed,  like 
so  many  excrescences,  those  whose  love  of 
money  alone  had  induced  them  to  join. 

Woman's  Place  in  the  New  Order 

It  seems,  at  this  distance,  quite  a  matter 
of  course  happening  that  women  should 


FOR   FARM   WOMEN  19 

have  been  made  equal  with  men  in  the 
Grange.  But  forty  years  ago,  when  this 
occurred,  it  was  not  so.  Even,  indeed,  at 
present,  there  are  few  fraternal  orders  com- 
posed of  both  sexes  on  the  same  broad  foot- 
ing as  exists  in  the  Grange.  But  that  it 
should  have  been  wrought  into  the  very 
beginnings  of  a  society  whose  aim  was  to 
amalgamate  the  rural  population  was  un- 
mistakably a  guidance  of  divine  Providence. 
In  no  other  way  could  the  problems  under- 
taken have  been  solved. 

The  social  stratum  of  a  people  underlies 
all  its  superstructure.  If  the  public  were 
astonished  forty  years  ago  to  see  farmers 
fairly  crowd  by  thousands  into  an  organiza- 
tion of  their  own,  how  they  would  have 
rubbed  their  Rip  Van  Winkle  eyes  could 
they  have  looked  forward  and  seen  what 
that  movement  meant  to  those  farmers' 
wives  and  their  daughters!  The  founders 
of  the  Grange  recognized  that  all  life  needs 
its  complementary  halves  —  the  strength  and 
wisdom  of  the  masculine  qualities,  and  the 
gentleness  and  love  of  the  feminine — else 
results  must  be  crude  and  opinions  biased. 
For  this  reason,  women  were  called.  With- 


20  ONE  WOMAN'S  WORK 

out  them  the  Grange  could  not  reach  its 
highest  idea,  an  enlarged  country  home. 

Think  what  it  must  have  meant  forty 
years  ago  to  country  women  to  come  close 
together  once  a  week  or  fortnight  and  spend 
a  social  evening  with  their  husbands  and 
brothers!  How  lonely  it  had  all  been  be- 
fore! Days  and  days  they  had  been  shut  in 
with  only  their  own  thoughts,  seldom  seeing 
faces  besides  those  of  their  own  families.1 
Is  it  any  wonder  that  their  minds  grew 
inert,  that  they  stopped,  dazed,  before  the 
social  complexities  of  the  world  beyond 
their  own  dooryards?  Timid,  shrinking, 
all  empty  of  conceit,  not  guessing  the  abili- 
ties latent  within  them,  they  came  to  the 
Grange.  There  they  drank  eagerly,  deeply. 
New  wheels  of  thought  began  to  revolve 
in  their  brains  as  they  worked.  So  it  was 
that  the  weary,  worn  women  of  the  farm 
found  sustenance  in  their  own  province. 
Neighbors  suddenly  became  more  attract- 

1  But  the  day  of  need  of  organization  among  farming  folk  is  not  past. 
Only  last  December  (1907)  there  appeared  at  one  of  our  state  Granges  a 
woman  who,  with  her  husband,  had  come  five  hundred  miles  to  repre- 
sent the  new  Grange  of  which  six  of  her  family  were  members.  In  con- 
versation with  her  newly  found  Grange  sisters,  this  interesting  woman  said 
she  was  the  mother  of  fourteen  children,  and  that,  at  one  time,  for  five 
years  she  saw  no  one  outside  her  immediate  family. 


FOR   FARM   WOMEN  21 

ive  to  them;  they  now  met  as  friends  those 
whose  names  they  had  barely  known;  music 
from  many  voices  stirred  their  souls  as 
never  before;  books  and  papers  held  out 
welcoming  hands  that  they  had  fancied 
were  only  for  the  leisurely.  They  did  the 
best  they  could  with  it  all.  They  listened 
and  thought  upon  what  they  heard  and  felt; 
they  set  splendid  tables  at  the  frequent 
feasts.  This  much  they  could  do. 

It  is  not  easily  told — the  whole  signifi- 
cance of  all  this.  Women  everywhere,  in 
or  out  of  the  order — the  farmer's  wife  and 
those  who  know  not  the  smell  of  clover 
and  the  low  of  cows — all  are  affected  by  the 
fact  that  women  for  forty  years  have  been 
in  training  in  the  Grange.  So  do  we  rise 
and  fall  together.  When  the  Grange  had 
been  organized  half  as  long  as  it  has  been 
now,  Mrs.  Hearty  Hunt  Woodman,  a 
woman  who  stood  with  her  husband  offi- 
cially close  to  the  heart  of  all  this  work, 
said  of  this  way  opening  before  farm  women : 
"  There  never  was  nor  can  be  again  such  an 
awakening  among  the  wives  and  daughters 
of  farmers  as  our  organization  has  brought 
about.  It  surpasses  anything  I  have  ever 


22  ONE  WOMAN'S  WORK 

known.  No  local  society  or  sectarian  gath- 
ering can  bring  together  the  talent,  com- 
bined with  general  knowledge  and  physical 
strength,  that  our  women  possess,  always 
ready  to  respond  in  the  Grange  to  any  call 
that  may  be  made ;  but  outside  the  gate  they 
are  diffident  and  only  listeners.  The  time 
is  soon  coming  when  their  light  will  shine 
beyond,  and  all  will  feel  and  know  that  our 
organization  has  developed  the  mind  of 
woman  more  than  the  most  sanguine  dared 
to  hope.  The  founders  of  our  order  are 
jubilant  every  year  we  meet  in  annual  ses- 
sions, because  of  the  work  woman  is  doing." 

Outside  the  Home,  but  Farther  Away 

Into  such  initial  efforts  at  rural  social 
improvement  work,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Mayo 
threw  the  force  of  their  lives  at  their  prime. 
They  were  active  in  their  home  neighbor- 
hood organizations,  the  Farmers'  Club  and 
local  Grange,  and  became  officers  in  the 
county  Grange.  They  were  early  ^sent  as 
delegates  to  the  state  Grange  session.  In 
1882,  a  woman  who  met  them  there  for  the 
first  time,  in  noting  salient  features  of  the 
meeting,  wrote  of  them,  "Mr.  and  Mrs. 


FOR   FARM   WOMEN  23 

Mayo  are  young,  active,  and  full  of  Grange 


vim." 


Mrs.  Mayo's  work  in  the  state  session 
and  her  contributions  to  the  state  Grange 
paper  were  the  open  doors  through  which 
calls  came  into  her  home  from  the  outside 
world.  She  began  to  go  out  into  all  parts 
of  her  own  state  and  adjoining  ones  to  press 
upon  her  fellow-  farm  men  and  women  their 
need  of  organized  effort  for  their  own  social 
and  mental  awakening.  The  first  time  she 
ventured  out  of  her  own  county  was  to  talk 
to  Grange  people  in  the  adjoining  one  of 
Barry.  Mr.  Mayo  accompanied  her,  and 
they  drove  thirty-six  miles  to  their  first 
appointment.  Of  this  meeting,  years  after- 
ward, she  said:  "I  knew  that  people  came 
just  out  of  curiosity  to  hear  a  woman  speak. 
I  saw  just  a  few  women  who  drank  in 
eagerly  what  little  I  had  to  say.  Some  ridi- 
culed, a  few  were  indignant.  That  some 
were  glad  to  listen  is  evidenced  by  the  fact 
that  they  asked  me  to  speak  to  the  school 
children  the  next  day,  which  I  did.  Those 
women  who  did  listen  to  me  were  among 
my  stanchest  friends,  and  are  to  this  day. 
One  woman  told  me  she  could  not  set  her- 


24  ONE  WOMAN'S  WORK 

self  at  work  the  next  day,  but  went  out  to 
the  field  where  her  husband  was  at  work  to 
talk  over  with  him  what  I  had  said."  In 
reporting  her  year's  work  to  state  Grange 
the  following  December,  Mrs.  Mayo  said 
of  this  tour,  "If  we  should  ever  become  so 
demoralized  as  to  run  out  of  home,  friends, 
and  everything  else,  we  certainly  shall  go 
to  Barry  County,  for  I  know  of  no  place 
where  they  are  so  forbearing  and  charitable 
as  there." 

From  this  time  forward  more  calls  than 
she  could  fill  came  to  her.  They  came  from 
all  parts  of  the  state.  It  must  be  remem- 
bered that  she  was  not  a  free  agent  whose 
time  was  entirely  open  to  outside  demands. 
She  was  wife,  mother,  and  housekeeper; 
and  nothing  but  her  craving  to  sweeten  and 
deepen  other  lives  like  her  own  could  have 
tempted  her  to  make  room  for  this  work. 
She  left  the  love  circle  about  her  home  fire- 
side in  order  to  beat  a  path  through  a  way 
for  the  most  part  untrodden  by  feet  of  other 
women  of  that  time.  Of  the  difficulties 
that  beset  her  path,  and  of  the  reception  the 
people  gave  her  work,  she  once  said,  in  re- 
porting fifty  lectures  and  several  talks  given 


FOR   FARM   WOMEN  2<J 

during  the  year  1885:  "As  I  look  back  over 
the  work  I  see  so  many  discrepancies  and 
shortcomings  I  feel  almost  guilty;  still  I 
have  done  what  I  could.  I  had  planned 
for  much  work  during  last  winter,  but  the 
weather  was  a  ban  to  the  lecture  field,  and 
I  found  my  own  physical  strength  insuffi- 
cient to  battle  with  blocked  roads  and  a 
thermometer  that  would  persist  in  staying 
twenty  degrees  below  zero.  The  better  half 
of  the  firm  said  very  decidedly,  'You  had 
better  bide  a  wee,'  so  that  only  twice  from 
January  until  the  23d  of  March  did  I 
attempt  any  work." 

And  again,  1886,  when  reporting  seventy- 
three  lectures,  she  said:  "At  times  we  have 
had  unavoidable  things  to  contend  against, 
such  as  bad  roads,  rough  weather,  late 
trains,  weariness,  and  homesickness;  but 
from  the  patrons  there  have  always  been 
kindly  greetings,  words  of  encouragement, 
and  good  cheer;  and,  best  of  all,  over  our 
many  failures  and  shortcomings  they  have 
kindly  and  gently  placed  the  mantle  of  that 
sweet  charity  which  suffereth  long  and  is 
kind.  I  have  organized  but  one  new 
Grange  this  year,  Clearwater,  of  Kalkaska 


26  ONE  WOMAN'S  WORK 

County.  There  are  some  things  in  this  life 
that  I  may  forget,  but  I  shall  never  forget 
the  effort  we  made  in  behalf  of  the  people 
of  Kalkaska.  After  carefully  comparing 
their  situation  before  the  Grange  came  to 
them  with  their  possibilities  and  even  their 
probabilities  now  they  have  a  Grange,  I 
think  it  is  the  best  day's  and  night's  work 
I  ever  did  in  my  life." 

I  have  visited  this  Clearwater  Grange, 
set  away  among  the  Kalkaska  hills,  and 
felt  the  lingering  influence  of  its  organizer 
hanging  over  it  after  many  years.  Upon  re- 
quest, the  family  who  entertained  her  and 
assisted  in  the  working  up  of  the  Grange 
have  furnished  me  with  the  following  ac- 
count of  her  work  in  that  community,  which 
is  fairly  typical  of  her  tirelessness  whenever 
she  was  in  the  field: 

"Mrs.  Mayo  came  to  our  home  on 
August  30,  1886,  and  in  the  evening  deliv- 
ered an  address  at  our  Boardman  Valley 
Grange.  Next  day  we  went  with  her  to 
J.  A.  Gibson's  farm  in  Clearwater  town- 
ship, about  ten  miles  from  our  home.  Here 
in  the  afternoon  she  spoke  to  a  large  audi- 
ence in  JMr.  Gibson's  new  barn,  enrolling 


FOR   FARM    WOMEN  2J 

afterward  twenty-three  names  as  charter 
members  of  Clearwater  Grange.  In  the 
evening,  at  a  schoolhouse  two  miles  away, 
she  instructed  the  first  and  only  Grange  she 
ever  organized.  About  midnight  we  started 
for  home;  but,  going  up  a  large  hill,  an 
evener  broke,  and  we  stopped  at  Mr.  Gib- 
son's until  we  could  make  a  new  one.  It 
was  four  o'clock  in  the  morning  when  we 
reached  home,  for  we  had  no  stone  county 
roads  then,  only  the  deep  sand  ones  every- 
where. During  that  night  a  hard  frost  fell, 
killing  nearly  everything.  Three  years  later, 
Mrs.  Mayo  came  again  to  our  home  and 
spoke  at  Excelsior  Grange,  six  miles  away, 
in  the  evening.  The  following  day  she  went 
to  Clearwater,  ten  miles,  where  she  dedi- 
cated the  new  hall  of  the  Grange  which 
she  had  organized.  Rain  fell  most  of  the 
day.  Leaving  the  neighborhood  about  seven 
o'clock  in  the  evening,  on  our  way  to  Kal- 
kaska,  we  were  out  in  one  of  the  most 
drenching  showers  of  the  season.  We  left 
her  at  Kalkaska  to  take  the  eleven  o'clock 
train  for  her  home,  more  than  two  hundred 
miles  distant." 


28  ONE  WOMAN'S  WORK 

Character  and  Intimacy  of  Her  Work 

No  other  woman  has  begun  to  be  the 
apostle  of  social,  mental,  and  spiritual  de- 
velopment among  the  rural  communities 
of  her  native  state  that  this  "  little  brown 
woman  from  the  farm"  has  been.  This  epi- 
thet is  one  she  applied  to  herself,  referring 
to  her  deep  brown  eyes  and  hair,  dark  skin 
and  sun-tanned  hands.  So  unobtrusive  in 
dress  and  bearing  was  she  that  people  sel- 
dom guessed  her  identity  until  it  was  made 
known  to  them.  She  blended  into  the  scenes 
among  which  she  moved  much  as  do  the  di- 
minutive brown  song  sparrows  of  our  coun- 
try roadsides.  Like  them,  too,  she  attracted 
attention  first  when  she  lifted  her  voice  in 
joyful,  courageous  greeting,  for  she  spoke 
always  with  tone  and  face  that  seemed 
charged  with  an  individual  knowledge  of 
her  listeners'  difficulties  and  a  sure  confi- 
dence in  their  ultimate  solution.  Her  mes- 
sage went  ever  quick  and  decisive  from 
her  heart  to  the  great,  all-hungering  heart 
of  humanity  in  whatever  guise  it  heard 
her. 

It  is  not  enough  to  say  she  went  through 
the  highways  and  byways,  nor  will  the  num- 


FOR  FARM   WOMEN  29 

her  of  public  platforms  she  spoke  from  give 
any  adequate  estimate  of  what  she  did. 
Hers  was  a  far  more  intimate  work.  Her 
most  lasting  labors  were  the  ones  performed 
by  the  hearthside,  in  the  living  room,  sitting 
often  hand  in  hand  with  the  wife  and 
mother;  and  even  " under  the  covers"  ex- 
changing confidences  with  the  daughters, 
with  whom  it  frequently  fell  to  her  lot  to 
share  her  room  in  the  crowded  homes  that 
made  her  welcome.  Since  her  earthly  pil- 
grimages ceased,  on  the  walls  of  how  many 
guest  chambers,  or  in  the  sitting  rooms  of 
how  many  homes  where  she  had  been  enter- 
tained, have  we  who  follow  after  found  her 
picture  framed  and  hung! 

Mary  A.  Mayo  was  only  one  of  hun- 
dreds of  far-seeing  men  and  women  who, 
realizing  actual  conditions  in  the  set- 
apart  farm  home,  grasped  the  possibilities 
afforded  them  through  organized  move- 
ments. To  her,  however,  more  than  to  any 
other  woman,  certainly  more  than  to 
any  other  Michigan  woman,  was  given  the 
task  and  privilege  of  large  sacrifice  that 
she  might  lead  others  into  these  richer 
fields. 


30  ONE  WOMAN  S  WORK 

Farm  and  Rural  Opportunities 

She  looked  out  on  what  was  being  done 
for  city  and  town  women  through  .social 
and  study  clubs.  She  saw,  also,  the  white 
hands  of  philanthropy  leading  these  same 
city  sisters  out  of  self-centered  lives  to  work 
for  others.  Over  against  these  things,  she 
saw  the  Grange  and  kindred  organizations 
offering  corresponding  opportunities  to 
farm  women.  She  realized  what  a  woman, 
years  later,  expressed  in  one  of  the  women's 
meetings  that  grew  up  under  Mrs.  Mayo's 
nurture,  "About  the  only  difference  be- 
tween town  and  country  women,  after  all, 
is  just  a  matter  of  a  few  miles."  With  this 
vision  clearly  before  her,  she  strove  as  best 
she  could  to  make  it  apparent  to  the  sight  of 
other  women  situated  like  herself. 

One  day  she  had  a  memorable  meeting 
with  the  one  woman  who,  more  than  all 
others  at  that  time  in  her  part  of  the  world, 
could  sympathize,  encourage,  and  advise 
her  in  these  things.  This  woman  was  Mrs. 
Lucinda  Hinsdale  Stone,  widely  known  as 
"Mother  of  Women's  Clubs."  A  year  or 
two  before  her  death,  Mrs.  Mayo  described 
this  interview:  "A  good  many  years  ago, 


FOR   FARM   WOMEN  31 

nearly  twenty  I  think,  when  I  first  began 
lecture  work  in  the  Grange,  State  Master 
Luce  planned  for  me  a  series  of  meetings  in 
Wexford  County.  I  was  new  to  the  work, 
and  it  seemed  so  far  that  I  was  homesick 
ere  I  started,  and  my  heart  almost  failed  me 
in  the  going.  I  left  home  on  an  early  train, 
changing  cars  at  Kalamazoo  for  the  Grand 
Rapids  and  Indiana  Road,  which  would 
take  me  direct  to  Manton,  my  first  place  of 
speaking.  At  Kalamazoo  Mrs.  Stone  came 
on  the  train.  I  knew  her  by  sight,  but  had 
never  met  her  personally.  How  I  wanted 
to  talk  with  her!  How  I  wished  to  ask  her 
questions  which  were  burning  themselves 
into  my  heart,  and  which  were  demanding 
answers  that  I  could  not  give!  How  I 
longed  to  tell  her  the  purpose  of  my  jour- 
ney, and  to  ask  her  counsel  as  to  the  best 
way  of  reaching  my  sisters  on  the  farm! 
After  some  deliberations  with  self,  I 
pocketed  a  little  false  sentiment  and  intro- 
duced myself  to  Mrs.  Stone.  I  found  her 
one  of  the  most  gracious  and  affable  of 
women. 

"I  told  her  of  my  mission,  my  work, 
and  what  I  hoped  to  accomplish.    She  had 


32  ONE  WOMAN'S  WORK 

heard  of  the  Grange,  but  knew  very  little 
of  its  object.  She  asked  a  great  many  ques- 
tions about  it,  its  origin,  its  founders,  and 
what  we  expected  to  accomplish  by  it.  As 
she  belonged  to  a  city  club,  I  told  her  the 
Grange  was  to  the  country  woman  what  the 
club  was  to  the  city  woman,  and  more;  that 
in  the  Grange  woman  stood  on  an  equal 
footing  with  man.  Here  she  stopped  me 
and  said,  'This  is  the  key  to  your  success.' 
I  read  to  her  our  Declaration  of  Purposes, 
and  she  became  enthusiastic.  She  said:  'I 
have  long  had  you  country  women  on  my 
heart.  I  have  long  felt  you  needed  some- 
thing to  lift  you  to  higher  thought  and 
greater  usefulness,  and  here  you  have  it.' 

"I  shall  never  forget  the  earnestness  of 
her  face  nor  the  graciousness  of  her  manner 
when  we  came  to  the  parting  of  our  ways. 
As  she  laid  her  hand  on  mine,  she  said:  'Go 
on  with  this  work,  my  dear;  set  its  standard 
high;  keep  everything  out  of  your  organ- 
ization that  is  small  and  trivial;  have  sys- 
tem, though,  and  a  definiteness  of  action, 
always  striving  for  high  mental  and  moral 
growth.  So  shall  you  farm  women  grow— 
grow  into  womanliness,  helpfulness,  and 


FOR   FARM   WOMEN  33 

strength ;  so  shall  you  become  wise  counsel- 
ors as  wives,  stronger,  better  mothers,  hence 
better  citizens.  I  believe  the  time  will 
come,  if  you  Grange  workers  are  wise, 
when  every  township  will  have  some  kind 
of  an  organization,  and  you  women  will 
stand  as  man's  equal  in  all  things.'  At 
Manton  we  parted,  she  following  me  to 
the  car  steps,  cheering,  encouraging,  and 
strengthening  me  for  the  work.  Her  one 
thought  was  to  make  the  Grange  worth 
while,  to  bring  such  subjects  for  study  and 
discussion  to  its  members  as  should  stimu- 
late mental  and  moral  growth. 

"Her  words  have  been  most  prophetic. 
I  never  saw  her  but  once  after  that,  but 
there  was  no  mistaking  her  ideas  of  the 
Grange  and  its  possibilities.  She  knew  its 
need,  and,  knowing  something  of  its  prin- 
ciples, she  saw  in  the  distance  what  concert 
of  wise  work  would  accomplish." 

The  Evolved  Neighborhood 

That  was  at  least  a  quarter  of  a  century 
ago.  By  what  tokens  shall  organized 
movements  among  farm  people  now  be 
known?  We  cannot  well  be  content  with 


34  ONE  WOMAN'S  WORK 

tracing  its  [influence  in  great  legislative 
enactments — such  as  the  installing  of  a 
Secretary  of  Agriculture  in  the  Presiden- 
tial Cabinet,  bringing  about  rural  mail  de- 
livery, securing  stringent  dairy  and  food 
laws,  limiting  royalties  on  patents,  creat- 
ing the  Interstate  Commerce  Commission, 
and  alleviating  burdens  of  unequal  taxation 
in  many  states.  In  all  these  and  many  less 
spectacular  movements,  the  Grange,  with 
other  farmers'  organizations,  has  had  its 
part.  Important  as  that  part  has  been,  there 
has  gone  on  simultaneously  a  quiet  and 
interior  transformation  that  is  far  more  im- 
portant. It  has  been  nothing  less  than  the 
remaking  of  the  farm  home  life.  This  has 
been  done  by  giving  a  new  outlook  on  the 
sphere  of  rural  home  influence.  In  short, 
by  enlarging  that  home's  circumference,  it 
has  changed  the  neighborhood  into  the 
larger  family.  Here,  in  the  genial  atmos- 
phere of  this  larger  family  circle,  men 
and  women  have  brought  forth  gifts  long 
wrapped  in  napkins  of  social  disuse  and 
mental  inertia.  It  was  a  crude  process,  to 
be  sure.  The  foundations  built  upon  had, 
perforce,  to  be  actual  conditions) 


FOR  FARM   WOMEN  35 

The  Evolved  Individual 

Only  those  who  knew  those  conditions 
could  build  up  out  of  them,  and  there  had 
to  be  radical  beginnings.  Thus,  early  in 
her  connection  with  this  work,  we  find  Mrs. 
Mayo  calling  her  first  talk  by  the  title  of 
" Bread  and  Books."  In  the  inimitably 
simple  and  practical  way  she  had  of  talking 
to  people,  singly  or  in  masses,  she(urged 
them  to  work  first  for  shelter,  clothing,  and 
food ;  but  then  not  to  be  content,  but  to  add 
to  these  reading,  thinking,  and  culture  of 
mind  and  heart.  "We  are  conscious  of  one 
thing  that  must  be  done,"  she  said,  "and 
that  over  and  over  again.  We  must  edu- 
cate, educate,  educate!  We  have  much 
to  educate — some  things  to  educate  out  and 
some  to  educate  in.  The  almighty  dollar 
must  be  educated  out.  Men  and  women 
must  be  educated  to  the  fact  that  money, 
with  the  accumulation  thereof,  is  not  the 
whole  purpose  and  aim  of  life;  that  the 
mind  is  of  more  importance  than  bank 
stocks,  bonds,  and  mortgages;  and  that 
the  neglect  to  cultivate  the  intellect,  and  the 
eternal  round  of  toil  and  care  that  so  many 


36  ONE  WOMAN'S  WORK 

follow,  only  tend  to  drag  men  and  women 
down  to  slavery.'^) 

She  saw,  moreover,  that  the  socially 
ostracized  must  somehow  be  helped  to  ex- 
press themselves.  Lack  of  ability  out- 
wardly to  declare  his  inner  self  is  one  of 
the  heaviest  penalties  imposed  upon  one  by 
the  solitudes  and  distances  of  the  average 
rural  community.  It  is  not  alone  want  of 
power  to  say  what  he  thinks;  he  suffers 
quite  as  much  from  inability  to  act  what  he 
feels.  The  plight  of  multitudes  of  capable, 
substantial  men  and  women  is  voiced  by  one 
of  them  who  once  confessed  to  his  fellow- 
farmers,  "I  have  plenty  of  idees  up  in  my 
head;  trouble  is,  I  can't  get  them  down 
into  my  tongue!" 

To  farm  women  the  mental  and  social 
emancipation  of  the  past  half  century  has 
been  a  boon  indeed.  Not  long  ago,  in  the 
course  of  some  Grange  visits  in  the  upper 
peninsula  of  Michigan,  I  spent  the  day  with 
a  woman  who  had  been  freed  by  it.  The 
house — her  home — was  a  two-roomed  log 
house  with  a  " lean-to"  kitchen.  It  was  set 
quite  back  from  the  road,  but  flowers 
grew  about  the  front,  and  a  vine  ran  across 


FOR   FARM   WOMEN  37 

one  window.  The  floors  were  bare,  and 
the  seats  were  all  hard,  wood-bottomed, 
straight-backed  "kitchen  chairs."  One  of 
these  chairs  had  rockers,  and  that  was  the 
only  attempt  at  comfort  the  house  afforded; 
no  soft,  cushioned  rockers  or  pillowed 
couches  in  the  corners  or  under  the  win- 
dows. This  woman  —  in  this  house — was 
the  mother  of  nine  children.  When  we  had 
had  dinner  and  the  table  was  cleared  away, 
I  took  out  some  writing.  The  mother  gently 
drove  out  of  the  house  a  flock  of  five  little 
girls,  all  nearly  of  the  same  size,  telling 
them  I  must  be  left  alone.  But  after  a  few 
moments  of  quiet  she  herself  came  into  the 
room,  and  said,  "Excuse  me  for  interrupt- 
ing you,  but  there  is  one  question  I  want  to 
ask."  Hurriedly  my  mind  flew  over  the 
multitude  of  questions  she  might  wish  to 
ask — this  mother  of  nine  children,  living 
thirty-seven  miles  from  a  railroad,  a  furni- 
ture store,  or  a  dry  goods  counter,  out  of 
reach  of  concerts,  lectures,  and  other  events 
commonly  thought  to  be  sources  of  human 
inspiration.  What  could  be  the  one  ques- 
tion she  would  choose  to  ask?  Would  it  be 
how  to  make  a  new  gown  for  herself  or  one 


38  ONE  WOMAN'S  WORK 

of  the  girlies?  Would  it  be  what  sort  of  a 
rug  to  get  for  her  floor,  what  flowers  for 
her  garden,  or  what  pictures  for  her  walls? 
It  was  none  of  these.  It  was,  "  How  can  we 
help  those  women  where  we  were  yester- 
day?" The  day  before  we  had  met  in  a 
neighborhood  where  the  women  said  they 
had  no  time  to  go  to  Grange  meetings. 
"They  say  they  cannot  leave  their  chil- 
dren," she  continued,  "and  that  is  just 
the  situation  I  found  myself  in  when  the 
Grange  was  formed  here;  but  my  husband 
said  he  thought  we  could  manage  it,  and  so 
I  have  gone  regularly,  and  I  have  grown 
to  feel  that  I  can  find  something  to  talk 
about  with  every  one  I  meet.  I  have  good 
friends  all  over  the  neighborhood.  I  love 
the  country  and  am  never  lonely  here;  the 
sky  and  the  fields  are  a  delight  to  me; 
the  odors  of  the  flowers  and  the  clover,  the 
birds,  the  clouds,  and  the  quiet  are  all  com- 
pany in  our  lives.  I  should  so  like  to  help 
other  women  to  find  these  pleasures,  too." 

This  was  in  a  pioneer  section  of  the 
country.  Alongside  of  this  let  me  put  the 
testimony  of  another  woman  from  a  thickly 
settled,  old  part  of  our  state.  The  local 


FOR   FARM   WOMEN  39 

Grange,  of  which  Mrs.  McN.  and  her  hus- 
band are  members,  met  with  them  on  Mrs. 
McN.'s  fifty-sixth  birthday.  These  two  are 
among  the  most  faithful  attendants.  Mr. 
McN.,  Scotchman  that  he  is,  loves  an  argu- 
ment, and  has  practiced  public  speaking 
from  boyhood.  The  Grange  has  furnished 
him  a  fruitful  field  for  his  " besetting  sin," 
and  he  rarely  allows  a  meeting  to  pass  with- 
out entering  the  lists.  His  wife  is  the  mother 
of  ten  children,  but  she  is  youthful  still, 
despite  her  generous  maternity.  On  this 
particular  occasion,  when  the  Grange  met 
at  her  home,  the  responses  to  the  roll  call  of 
members  and  friends  consisted  of  birthday 
sentiments.  When  the  large  number  pres- 
ent had  expressed  their  kindliest  apprecia- 
tion of  her  past  and  good  wishes  for  her 
future,  Mrs.  McN.  rose  and  said:  "Once 
I  did  not  even  think  of  seeing  such  a  day  as 
this.  I  thank  you  for  the  good  things  you 
have  said  and  wished  for  me.  I  have  come 
to  know  you,  or  nearly  all  of  you,  through 
the  Grange.  All  my  early  married  life  I 
spent  close  at  home,  busy  with  my  children, 
cooking  for  them,  clothing  them,  and  doing 
the  best  I  could  for  them.  I  did  not  miss 


40  ONE  WOMAN'S  WORK 

the  outside  things  then,  for  I  was  satisfied 
with  my  duty;  but  as  my  children  began  to 
grow  up,  I  felt  I  was  a  stranger  to  my 
neighbors.  I  told  my  husband  how  I  felt, 
and  he  said  we  had  better  join  the  Grange. 
In  the  first  one  we  became  members  of, 
matters  did  not  mend  much  for  me.  I  went 
regularly  enough,  but  somehow  I  did  not 
get  acquainted.  After  we  joined  this 
Grange,  I  read  somewhere  that  the  way  to 
be  happy  is  to  find  some  one  lonelier  than 
yourself  and  try  to  make  him  or  her 
happy.  I  resolved  to  try  this  rule  at  Grange. 
When  I  saw  another  woman  sitting  off  by 
herself,  I  went  up  to  her  and  told  her  I  was 
glad  she  had  come ;  and  I  took  pains  to  greet 
strangers  when  they  came  to  visit  us.  I  kept 
doing  this  till  I  felt  perfectly  at  home 
among  our  Grange  members  and,  in  fact, 
wherever  I  went,  for  I  found  friends  wher- 
ever I  tried  to  be  friendly. 

"But  I  didn't  know  I  had  done  anything 
for  the  Grange,"  she  went  on,  "till  one  day 
the  master  of  the  Grange  announced  that 
we  were  to  entertain  the  county  Grange, 
and  he  wished  that  every  one  would  copy 
me  in  the  way  that  I  always  greeted  stran- 


FOR   FARM   WOMEN  41 

gers  and  made  them  feel  at  home.  Then  I 
saw,  for  the  first  time,  that  perhaps  I  had 
helped  somewhere,  and  I  was,  oh!  so  glad 
that  I  could  do  something  outside  my 
home!" 

In  the  hush  that  followed  this  confiden- 
tial opening  of  the  gentle  woman's  heart, 
one  of  the  men  present — sturdy,  keen,  busi- 
nesslike upon  ordinary  occasions — arose 
and  quietly  asked,  "  Isn't  that  all  of  life— 
to  make  some  one  else  happy?"  It  has 
been  the  revealing  of  such  pure,  limpid 
depths  of  human  nature  as  these  in  the  lives 
of  men  and  women,  born  and  bred  in  coun- 
try homes,  that  has  made  the  Grange  most 
worth  while,  and  has  put  us  forever  under 
debt  to  its  promoters. 

Children  s  Day  In  the  Grange 

The  age  of  entrance  to  Grange  member- 
ship was  originally  sixteen  years.  This  left 
the  children  unprovided  for,  a  large  factor 
in  the  farm  home  life.  To  the  country 
children  Mrs.  Mayo's  mother  instinct  ever 
reached  out,  and  early  in  her  association 
with  state  Grange  she  proposed  that  a  day 
be  observed  annually  as  Children's  Day. 


42  ONE  WOMAN'S  WORK 

The  idea  met  with  ready  favor  with  those 
in  authority,  with  mothers,  and  especially 
with  the  little  folks,  who  were  usually  left 
at  home  or  tucked  away  asleep  during 
Grange  meetings.  The  matter  was  taken 
into  national  Grange  by  State  Master  C.  G. 
Luce,  and  for  several  years  a  day  was  ap- 
pointed by  the  master  of  that  body,  all  the 
states  being  asked  to  observe  it.  Custom 
has  now  decreed  that,  if  possible,  the  third 
Saturday  in  June  shall  be  given  over  to 
making  happy  times  for  all  the  children  of 
Grange  communities. 

Mrs.  Mayo  was  the  life  of  every  meet- 
ing of  this  kind  that  she  attended.  Having 
early  acquired  the  habit  of  telling  stories  to 
her  own  children,  she  continued  the  prac- 
tice wherever  she  went,  often  mingling  in 
them  her  brightest  humor  and  deepest 
thought.  Her  bear  and  Indian  stories  were 
especially  famous  among  the  children  who 
knew  her  best.  She  used  the  commonest 
words  and  most  expressive  phrases,  but 
spurned  all  coarseness. 

Woman's  Work  in  the  Grange 

Although  men  and  women  entered  and 
worked  together  in  the  Grange  organiza- 


FOR  FARM   WOMEN  43 

tion,  still  for  a  time  there  seemed  to  be  so 
many  things  that  women  could  do  better 
than  men,  that  special  committees  of 
women  were  appointed  for  these  purposes. 
These  were  known  throughout  the  order  as 
" Woman's  Work  Committees."  In  her 
own  state,  Mrs.  Mayo  was  the  first  chair- 
man, and  remained  leader  of  this  commit- 
tee for  fourteen  years.  At  the  outset  she 
wrote  of  it:  "We  thought  woman  had  al- 
ready borne  her  part  by  the  side  of  her 
brother;  but  here,  as  in  other  fields,  there 
seemed  to  be  work  that  none  but  a  woman 
could  do.  It  appealed  to  her  deftness  of 
touch,  her  artistic  taste,  and  to  all  the  finer 
sensibilities  that  characterize  the  true 
woman." 

The  aim  of  these  committees  included 
efforts  to  improve  the  rural  schools,  to 
inculcate  patriotism  in  the  young,  to  make 
places  where  Granges  meet  more  homelike 
by  raising  money  to  furnish  them  comfort- 
ably and  attractively,  to  encourage  greater 
tidiness  upon  farm  premises  and  improve 
home  dooryards,  and  to  look  after  the  sick, 
the  lonely,  and  the  needy  of  the  various 
Grange  communities. 


44  ONE  WOMAN'S  WORK 

Grange  Fresh  Air  Work 
f  *~tk 

But  Mrs.  Mayo  soon  conceived  the  idea 

of  broadening  the  scope  of  the  work  under- 
taken by  country  people  so  as  to  enlist  their 
sympathies  and  cooperation  in  caring  for 
the  worn-out  and  worthy  poor  outside  their 
immediate  neighborhoods.  It  was  a  social 
extension  service  she  pleaded  for,  and  it 
grew  under  her  inspiration  and  direction 
until  it  became  known  as  the  "  Grange 
Fresh  Air  Work."  It  was  no  easy  thing 
to  bring  about — this  getting  strange  little 
waifs  and  exhausted  women  and  girls  from 
the  city  out  into  the  peaceful,  uninvaded 
precincts  of  the  comfortable,  roomy,  better- 
to-do  class  of  country  homes.  There  is  a 
sort  of  aristocracy  of  silence  and  cleanliness 
about  some  of  these  farmers'  homes  that  it 
is  hard  to  gain  permission  to  break  with 
the  clatter  and  carelessness  of  a  child  un- 
bridled for  a  holiday.  Mrs.  Mayo  had  in 
mind,  it  is  easy  to  suppose,  quite  as  much 
the  benefit  such  an  innovation  would  bring 
her  country  friends  as  the  health  and  joy 
the  change  would  give  the  " fresh  airs" 
themselves.  She  herself  set  the  example, 
and  every  summer  saw  one  to  half  a  dozen 


FOR   FARM    WOMEN  45 

worn  office  clerks,  sewing  girls,  tired 
mothers,  or  urchins  from  the  alleys,  each 
given  a  few  days  or  weeks  of  delightful 
outing  in  her  home.  A  paragraph  in  one 
of  her  midsummer  notes  reads:  "We  have 
now  our  fifth  fresh-air  girl,  a  daughter  who 
five  years  ago  laid  her  mother's  worn-out 
body  away  and  then  stepped  into  her  place, 
caring  for  and  working  for  a  family  of 
seven.  She  says  it  is  the  first  time  she  has 
known  rest  since  her  mother  left  them. 
Her  gratitude  is  just  pitiful." 

She  planned  with  charity  authorities 
and  railroad  officials  for  the  proper  collec- 
tion and  transportation  of  hundreds  of  these 
denizens  of  the  hot  cities.  Then  she  en- 
couraged and  coaxed  the  country  women, 
here  and  there  wherever  she  knew  of  one 
at  all  favorable  to  her  cause,  to  enter  this 
beneficent  work  with  her.  How  well  she 
succeeded  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  between 
a  thousand  and  fifteen  hundred  poor  chil- 
dren and  mothers  had  summer  outings,  and 
at  least  thirty  orphans  are  known  to  have 
been  adopted  into  good  homes  as  a  direct 
result  of  this  work. 


46  ONE  WOMAN'S  WORK 

Women  at  the  Agricultural  College 

Coordinate  with  these  efforts,  endeavors 
in  other  directions  were  being  put  forth 
toward  the  same  end,  namely,  the  broaden- 
ing of  the  scope  of  the  rural  home  and  the 
usefulness  of  its  members.  Thirty-nine 
years  elapsed  between  the  founding  of  the 
first  agricultural  college  for  boys  and  ade- 
quate provision  for  girls  at  the  same  institu- 
tion. True,  younger  colleges  of  its  kind 
had  opened  wide  their  doors  earlier,  and 
thus  furthered  the  propriety,  possibility, 
and  desirableness  of  the  idea;  but  it  was 
not  accomplished  without  an  often  tiresome 
struggle.  There  had  to  be  a  long,  long 
process  of  educating  the  very  people  for 
whom  the  door  was  to  be  held  open.  Hard 
as  it  was  to  persuade  farmers  to  send  their 
boys  to  a  college  devoted  to  a  special  train- 
ing in  agriculture,  it  was  still  more  difficult 
to  secure  means  to  provide  for  the  care  of 
these  boys'  sisters  on  the  same  campus.  A 
few  people  had  to  do  a  deal  of  persuading 
and  educating,  both  of  officials  and  of  the 
masses,  before  courses  in  domestic  science 
and  art  were  given  at  Michigan  Agricul- 
tural College.  Among  these  few,  it  is  not 


FOR   FARM   WOMEN  47 

surprising  to  find  Mrs.  Mayo.  She  held 
that  the  best  things  were  none  too  good  for 
the  farm  wife  and  daughter.  With  a  boy 
of  her  own  taking  the  full  agricultural 
course,  and  a  girl  coming  on  after  him — 
for  the  one  she  coveted  what  the  other  had. 
For  other  girls  she  desired  the  same,  and  she 
urged  upon  their  fathers  and  mothers  the 
value  of  systematic,  scientific  training  for 
the  minds,  hands,  and  eyes  of  these  girls 
who  were  probably  to  become  homemakers. 
This  was  her  xplea,  in  season  and  out,  wher- 
ever she  went;  and  year  after  year  she 
saw  that  a  resolution  was  adopted  by  state 
Grange,  thus  securing  the  influence  of  that 
body  for  the  movement.  At  last  the  plan 
succeeded.  Extra  instructors  were  provided 
and  an  old  hall  fitted  up  for  the  girls.  In 
1900  a  special  women's  building  was  com- 
pleted. Many  gathered  from  every  direc- 
tion to  celebrate  the  occasion.  The  little 
mother  woman  who  had  wrought  and 
prayed  for  this  day  for  so  many  years  could 
not  be  present  because  of  the  serious  illness 
of  her  "one  ewe  lamb";  but  five  hundred 
women  arose  in  her  honor,  recognizing  her 
labor  of  love  in  helping  to  bring  about  that 
day. 


48  ONE  WOMAN'S  WORK 

Into  every  structure  of  stone  and, brick 
there  goes  brain  and  heart  fiber;  it  is  a  real- 
ization of  somebody's  dream.  None  more 
so  than  into  the  beams  and  walls  of  the 
buildings  designed  for  the  education  of  our 
farm  girls. 

Industrial  Home  for  Girls 

Mrs.  Mayo's  interest  did  not  stop  with 
the  improving  and  providing  education  for 
the  cherished  daughters  of  the  best  farm 
homes  of  the  land.  She  knew  no  narrow 
prejudices  of  caste  or  class.  In  the  city 
nearest  her  home  she  associated  herself  with 
charity  organizations,  and  for  ten  years 
acted  on  the  board  of  managers  of  one  of 
its  hospitals.  Then,  when  Cyrus  G.  Luce 
went  from  his  farm  and  the  master's  chair 
of  the  state  Grange  to  become  governor  of 
Michigan,  he  appointed  Mrs.  Mayo  upon 
the  board  of  control  of  the  State  Industrial 
Home  for  Girls.  In  this  position  she  found 
ample  room  for  the  exercise  of  those  gifts 
of  mind  and  heart  that  were  hers  in  so  gen- 
erous a  measure.  She  pledged  her  best  for 
those  girls,  unfortunate  by  birth  or  environ- 
ment, or  both,  perverted  by  waywardness 


FOR   FARM   WOMEN  49 

and  often  degraded  by  actual  sins.  The 
woman  who  was  superintendent  of  the 
school  at  the  time  Mrs.  Mayo  entered  upon 
her  connection  with  it  said  of  her:  "She 
visited  and  encouraged  the  officers  in  their 
peculiar  and  often  discouraging  work.  Her 
interest  in  the  girls  and  her  hope  for  their 
redemption  never  wavered.  Unlike  many, 
she  had  no  foolish  sentimentalism,  but  her 
strong,  motherly  heart,  her  sympathetic  na- 
ture and,  above  all,  her  rare  common  sense, 
were  understood  and  appreciated  by  every 
girl  who  knew  her.  Her  talks  in  chapel  and 
cottage  were  always  enjoyed  by  these  girls. 
They  knew  and  understood  her  to  be  a  true 
friend,  for  no  class  of  girls  is  keener  and 
sharper  in  reading  character  than  that  at 
the  Home.  I  always  felt  safe  about  any  girl 
that  Mrs.  Mayo  placed  in  a  home,  and  she 
took  out  scores  of  them.  Her  vigilant  watch- 
care  was  constant;  if  she  found  the  girl  was 
not  adapted  to  the  home,  or,  as  it  so  often 
occurred,  the  home  was  not  all  it  should 
be  for  the  girl's  best  good,  she  would  place 
her  in  another,  sometimes -making  several 
changes  before  the  girl  was  fitted  in  where 
the  best  that  was  in  her  could  be  brought 


50  ONE  WOMAN'S  WORK 

out.  She  amazed  me  by  her  patience,  her 
sympathy,  and  her  rare  discernment  in  many 
of  these  cases.  I  can  almost  see  the  sparkle 
of  her  eyes  and  hear  her  laugh  as  she  would 
tell  the  adventures  she  met  with  in  the 
management  of  refractory  girls  in  her  own 
home.  She  did  not  bring  them  back  in  dis- 
grace, but  kept  working  and  praying,  re- 
proving and  encouraging,  month  after 
month,  and  often  year  after  year.  I  some- 
times felt  it  was  too  wearing  for  her,  and 
would  say,  ' Bring  her  back,  Mrs.  Mayo, 
and  I  will  give  you  another  girl.'  'I  will 
not;  I  am  going  to  save  that  girl,'  was  the 
reply  she  invariably  gave  me.  Eternity 
alone  will  reveal  the  results  of  her  work 
with  the  girls.  I  loved  her,  and  cannot  tell 
how  much  she  was  to  me." 

Mrs.  Mayo  knew,  none  better,  that  the 
wholesome  atmosphere  of  a  good  country 
home  was  the  tonic  the  degenerated  minds 
and  souls  of  her  Industrial  Home  girls 
needed.  She  realized  that  they  pined  phys- 
ically, as  well  as  spiritually,  for  the  pure 
air,  the  vigorous  work,  and  the  healthy 
interests  that  go  with  energetic  country 
living;  and  that,  more  than  all  else,  they 


FOR   FARM   WOMEN  51 

needed  the  sort  of  mothering  they  might 
have  in  many  of  these  homes.  Thus  in  this 
work,  as  in  her  fresh  air  work,  Mrs.  Mayo 
kept  firm  hold  of  the  rural  woman's  hand. 
She  sought  to  take  her  country  sister  with 
her  on  all  her  own  excursions  into  the  lives 
of  those  who  lived  beyond  the  bounds  of 
farm  fences.  She  was  never  diverted  from 
the  chiefest  aim  of  her  endeavors,  the  draw- 
ing out  and  developing  of  the  rural  home, 
but  consistently  acted  on  her  belief  in  its 
possibilities. 

Women's  Sections  of  Farmers'  Institutes 

Among  the  many  agencies  that  have 
united  to  make  for  the  betterment  of  rural 
community  life,  farmers'  institutes  have 
played  a  large  part.  They  have  been  in- 
spirational centers  and  have  conducted 
vigorous,  though  brief,  schools  of  instruc- 
tion in  progressive  agriculture  and  rural 
sociology.  Necessarily  these  have  had  to 
include  topics  relating  to  the  home  as  well 
as  to  the  work  of  the  fields,  for  the  two  are 
inextricably  knit  together. 

In  1895  the  scope  of  the  Michigan  sys- 
tem of  institutes  was  enlarged  through  a 


52  ONE  WOMAN'S  WORK 

greatly  increased  appropriation  of  funds. 
This  enabled  the  superintendent  of  insti- 
tutes, then  Mr.  K.  L.  Butterfield,  to  intro- 
duce some  new  features,  among  which  was 
the  provision  for  a  separate  woman's  section 
at  each  county  meeting.  The  idea  appealed 
to  him  as  not  only  feasible,  but  as  one  that 
would  probably  prove  desirable  and  help- 
ful among  women.  Before  announcing  the 
plan  at  all,  he  visited  Mrs.  Mayo,  who  had 
long  been  the  confidante  and  counselor  of 
those  leaders  in  rural  improvement  projects 
who  knew  her.  Mr.  Butterfield  laid  his 
suggestions  before  her — this  idea  of  get- 
ting women  together  and  leading  them  to 
talk  of  those  subjects  most  vital  to  them  and 
their  homes.  Although  a  man  proposed  the 
plan,  he  well  knew  it  needed  a  woman  to 
inaugurate  and  mother  it. 

It  is  not  hard  to  explain  his  reliance 
upon  Mrs.  Mayo  for  this  new  undertaking; 
neither  is  it  difficult  for  those  who  have 
once  come  under  the  spell  of  her  vivacity 
and  manifested  sympathy  to  understand  the 
remarkable  success  it  attained  under  her 
leadership.  When  asked  how  the  project 
suggested  by  Mr.  Butterfield  appealed  to 


FOR  FARM   WOMEN  53 

her,  she  said:  "My  heart  just  throbbed.  It 
was  what  I  had  long  wanted  to  do.  He 
asked  me  what  I  would  talk  about.  They 
were  strong  subjects  that  I  suggested,  and 
I  remember  we  discussed  the  matter  of  how 
they  would  be  received.  Finally  it  was  de- 
cided to  try  the  plan."  Looking  back  now 
over  the  history  of  the  wonderful  women's 
meetings,  held  in  nearly  every  county  in 
Michigan  and  in  many  other  places,  we 
feel  it  strange  that  she  was  so  fearful  of  the 
undertaking.  Under  date  of  August  9, 
1895,  sne  wrote  the  superintendent  of  in- 
stitutes as  follows:  "What  the  institutes  are 
going  to  do,  especially  for  us  women  folks, 
is  the  question  that  troubles  me.  There  are 
hosts  of  topics  that  need  bringing  to  the 
'wimin.'  While  we  gladly  listen  to  papers 
upon  the  scientific  feeding  of  farm  stock, 
we  want  to  know  something  about  the  sci- 
entific feeding  of  the  human  animal.  We 
can  understand  something  of  the  relative  j 
value  of  a  silo  and  the  best  way  to  construct 
a  barn;  but  we  want  also  to  know  how  best 
to  build  the  home  so  that  its  influence  upon 
each  member  of  the  family  may  be  most 
helpful.  The  serious  and  grave  questions 


54  ONE  WOMAN'S  WORK 

of  life-saving  and  soul-saving  are  con- 
stantly thrust  upon  us ;  let  us  know  some- 
thing about  life-giving — how  to  bear  a  well 
child  and  rear  it  well.  If  we  only  had  a 
Mrs.  Kedzie1  and  three  or  four  of  her 
brightest  girls,  with  some  such  topics  as 
these : 

"'Every-day  cooking  in  the  average 
farm  kitchen ;  how  to  make  it  attractive  to 
the  eye  and  taste,  and  most  nourishing  to  the 
body.' 

"'The  farmer's  home,  and  how  to  make 
it  happy.' 

"'The  right  and  wrong  punishment  of 
children.' 

"  ' Heredity  and  maternity.'  ( Dare  you  ? 
This  is  a  subject  that  should  be  presented. 
I  can  think  of  none  more  needed.) 

"  'The  farmers'  daughters — where  shall 
they  be  educated?' 

"'Care  of  young  children;  healthful 
food  and  clothing  for  them.' 

"  'How  much  of  the  profits  of  the  farm 
should  the  wife  receive  during  the  life  of 
her  husband  and  how  much  at  his  death?' 

!Mrs.  Nellie  S.  Kedzie  (now  Mrs.  Howard  M.  Jones),  at  that  time 
Dean  of  the  Woman's  Department  of  Kansas  Agricultural  College. 


FOR  FARM   WOMEN  55 

"  'The  farm  home  and  all  that  it  should 
represent.' 

"Some  of  these  are  strong  subjects,  but 
the  public  needs  them." 

After  careful  thought,  Mrs.  Mayo  chose 
for  the  talks  she  was  to  give  two  subjects 
that  represented  the  lines  of  social  and 
practical  life  in  the  home  which  she  felt 
should  be  emphasized  in  these  experimental 
meetings  for  women.  These  topics  were, 
"Mother  and  Daughter,"  and  "Making 
Farm  Work  Easier."  She  spoke  usually 
without  notes,  talking  simply  and  directly 
out  of  her  heart  and  experience  to  those 
who  came  to  hear  her.  The  results  sur- 
prised the  most  sanguine.  The  meetings 
for  women,  under  the  leadership  of  a  farm 
woman,  proved  unique  and  far-reaching. 
The  same  intense  feeling  was  in  them  that 
accompanies  any  movement  which  touches 
vital  emotions  and  unexpressed  thoughts, 
and  which  requires  courage  and  tact  to  in- 
augurate. Through  them  many  women 
came  to  know  themselves  and  to  understand 
their  responsibilities  to  their  children  as 
never  before. 

The  first  of  the  Women's  Sections  was 


56  ONE  WOMAN'S  WORK 

held  November  14,  1895.  Afterward,  when 
asked  what  convinced  her  of  the  value  of 
the  separate  meetings  for  women,  Mrs. 
Mayo  instanced  this  first  meeting.  "I  shall 
never  forget  it,"  she  said.  "They  gave  us 
a  little  reading  room  with  a  few  chairs; 
I  myself  really  questioned  if  any  one  would 
come.  Twice  we  had  to  send  out  for  more 
chairs.  I  stated  the  object  of  the  meeting, 
all  the  time  tremblingly  watching  my  audi- 
ence. The  women  listened  quietly,  and  on 
a  few  of  the  older  faces  I  saw  tears.  I 
talked  for  half  an  hour,  when  some  school- 
girls came  in;  then  I  talked  to  them,  kindly, 
tenderly,  and  sat  down,  feeling  my  attempt 
had  been  almost  a  failure.  But  a  beautiful 
old  lady,  with  large  gold  earrings  and  a  gay 
blanket  shawl,  came  up  to  me,  put  her  arms 
around  me  tenderly,  and,  kissing  me,  said, 
'If  I  could  have  had  such  a  talk  as  that 
forty  years  ago  I  should  have  been  a  better 
mother.' " 

Reports  show  that  5, 309  women  attended 
Mrs.  Mayo's  sections  that  first  year,  in 
twenty  institutes,  including  the  state  meet- 
ing. In  1896-97  she  attended  forty-five 
institutes;  in  1897-98,  twenty-eight;  1898- 


FOR   FARM   WOMEN  57 

99,  eighteen;  and  in  1899-1900,  twelve. 
Each  year  she  presided  at  the  Women's 
Section  of  the  state  institute.  All  through 
her  service  she  addressed  the  general  insti- 
tute sections,  in  addition  to  holding  the 
separate  meeting  at  each  place.  No  account 
is  made  of  such  addresses  in  these  figures; 
but  it  seems  fair,  however,  to  estimate  that 
her  audiences  averaged  two  hundred  a  day, 
taking  her  work  all  through. 

In  closing  these  earnest,  heart  to  heart 
talks  with  mothers,  in  those  first  days,  Mrs. 
Mayo  was  wont  to  say:  "Oh,  mother,  all 
things  are  yours  —  religion,  science,  philos- 
ophy, art,  literature — all  that  is  best  of  the 
best  minds.  It  costs  something  to  secure  it,  \ 
but  it  is  worth  the  whole  price.  It  costs 
of  your  time,  your  energy — your  whole 
life's  labor  must  be  given  to  the  work.  It 
will  not  make  much  difference,  years  and 
years  from  now,  whether  you  rode  or 
walked,  whether  you  wore  a  costly  gown, 
made  in  the  most  approved  style,  or  a 
cheap  fabric  that  cost  little  money  and  less 
thought;  whether  your  carpets  were  ingrain 
or  Axminster,  or,  really,  whether  you  had 
carpets  at  all ;  but  it  will  make  a  vast  differ- 


58  ONE  WOMAN'S  WORK 

ence  what  thoughts  you  thought,  what  asso- 
ciations were  yours.  The  vigor  of  your 
mind  and  body,  the  aspiration  of  a  strong 
motherhood  that  stirs  your  soul  and  that 
helps  make  your  son  a  noble,  useful  man 
and  your  daughter  a  beautiful,  true  woman 
-these  things  are  important." 

It  was  to  be  expected  that  the  institutes 
would  encounter  hindrances.  Every  new 
enterprise,  particularly  of  an  educational 
character,  is  liable  to  suspicion  and  dis- 
credit at  the  outset  by  the  very  persons  it 
most  aims  to  help.  The  timid  doubt  its 
success  and  give  faint-hearted  assistance; 
mediocre  and  prejudiced  minds  pass  upon 
it  with  biased  judgment,  and  attempt  to 
gauge  it  by  material  measures.  One  of  the 
chief  aims  of  the  institutes  was  to  allay  such 
attitudes  of  mind.  Mrs.  Mayo's  only  ref- 
erence to  these  early  difficulties  occurs  in 
a  report,  where  she  exclaims,  "It  is  very 
hard  to  dissuade  people  that  somebody  is 
not  grinding  an  ax,  and  they  are  equally 
fearful  that  the  first  thing  they  know  they 
will  find  they  have  been  turning  the  grind- 
stone." She,  in  common  with  the  men  on 
the  institute  force,  understood  it  was  neces- 


FOR   FARM   WOMEN  59 

sarily  a  part  of  her  duty  to  overcome,  so  far 
as  possible,  such  suspicion  as  this,  remove 
prejudices,  and  broaden  farm  folks'  friend- 
ships beyond  the  confines  of  their  own  door- 
steps. To  accomplish  this,  methods  must 
needs  be  tested  and  rejected  if  found  not 
feasible;  and  thus  it  came  about  that  an  ex- 
perimental series  of  Mrs.  Mayo's  extension 
lectures  to  women  was  abandoned  for  lack 
of  funds.  "I  am  sorry  that  the  extension 
work  must  be  given  up,"  she  writes.  "  Some- 
how, I  can  hardly  have  it  so,  for  I  know 
from  what  several  women  told  me  that  it 
was  just  what  they  needed — especially 
young  mothers.  Why  must  matters  of  such 
vital  importance,  not  only  to  the  mothers  of 
today,  but  to  the  children  yet  unborn,  be 
made  secondary  to  stock  feeding  and  breed- 
ing, potato  growing,  and  marketing  and 
dairying?  ...  I  feel  so  small  and  so  help- 
less when  I  see  the  needs  of  the  people,  and 
my  soul  cries  out  for  wisdom,  strength,  and 
grace  to  help  some  of  them  along  and  up." 
Of  one  of  her  topics  she  writes:  "I 
should  like,  in  'Home  Life  on  the  Farm,' 
to  speak  very  practically  and  very  plainly; 
not  that  I  mean  to  be  offensive,  but  I  want 


60  ONE  WOMAN'S  WORK 

the  relations  of  husband  and  wife,  parents 
and  children,  to  stand  for  all  that  is  sweet 
and  true.  I  know  they  are  pioneers,  where 
I  am  to  go,  but  I  am  sure  I  can  reach  them. 
Because  of  this  pioneer  life,  of  its  struggles, 
anxieties,  and  cares,  I  want  to  tell  them  that 
these  things  should  only  bind  them  closer 
together.  I  do  not  mean  to  talk  sentiment, 
but  God's  truth" 

When  planning  the  'Women's  Section 
programs  for  one  of  the  annual  state  insti- 
tutes, she  asked  that  a  talk  be  given  by 
another  of  the  women  workers,  on  "The 
Relation  of  the  Farmer's  Wife  to  Society," 
adding  by  way  of  explanation  of  the  re- 
quest, "When  I  go  about  the  state  I  find  so 
many  mothers  with  young  children  who 
fairly  den  up — they  do  no  reading  or 
thinking,  they  have  no  one  to  exchange  an 
idea  with  or  get  an  idea  from  save  their 
husbands,  and  it  may  be  just  possible  that 
their  husbands  have  no  ideas  to  spare — they 
may  need  all  they  have." 

At  the  close  of  two  seasons'  experience 
with  these  gatherings  of  women,  and  after 
carefully  observing  their  effects  wherever 
he  had  opportunity,  the  superintendent 


FOR   FARM   WOMEN  6 1 

wrote  to  Mrs.  Mayo:  "Woman's  work  as 
we  have  known  it  under  your  charge  the 
past  winter  is  entirely  unknown  in  other 
states,  so  far  as  I  can  discover.  I  find  that 
the  demand  for  the  work  is  peremptory, 
and  we  must  furnish  a  Women's  Section  for 
nearly  every  institute  next  winter."  On  her 
part,  Mrs.  Mayo  realized  what  an  innova- 
tion it  meant  to  bring  social  topics  of  the 
nature  she  spoke  upon  into  connection  with 
farmers'  institutes.  She  felt,  too,  the  cavils 
of  prejudice  and  misinterpretation  upon 
her  work  searing  her  soul  like  a  hot  iron; 
but  she  stood  and  spoke  the  word  as  she 
believed  it  to  be  needed.  The  paucity  of 
simple  information  and  pure  thought  on 
these  subjects  made  her  feel  the  necessity 
for  pressing  them  upon  mothers  and  daugh- 
ters. To  a  friend  who  was  in  closest  sym- 
pathy with  her  efforts  at  this  time  she  said: 
"The  saddest  thing  I  have  had  to  meet  is 
the  fact,  learned  from  some  of  our  brightest 
mothers,  that  mothers  do  not  know  how 
to  communicate  what  they  really  want  to 
either  to  their  young  children  or  their 
grown-up  or  growing  girls.  Some  lack 
knowledge,  but  more  lack  the  ability  to 


62  ONE  WOMAN'S   WORK 

teach  in  a  proper,  intelligent  way  what  they 
do  know.  I  have  taken  a  great  deal  of 
pains  to  inquire  about  this,  and  the  reply 
has  always  been  the  same,  i Teach  mothers 
how  to  teach  what  they  know.'  In  all  the 
meetings  I  have  held  I  have  found  but  one 
woman  who  felt  that  children  did  not  need 
to  be  taught  about  themselves;  at  least  I 
have  found  but  one  who  said  so.  I  had  a 
good  long  set-down  talk  with  her.  When 
I  finished,  she  said,  'I  think  you  are  doing 
the  right  kind  of  work.' 

"In  the  lists  of  books  on  these  subjects 
I  find  only  a  few  on  how  to  teach  chil- 
dren— how  to  plant  good,  beautiful,  holy 
thoughts  about  themselves.  What  will  do 
for  a  child  will  not  do  for  girls  from  four- 
teen to  twenty.  This  line  of  the  work 
troubles  me.  More  and  more  do  I  see  the 
dire  need — that  is  what  perplexes.  The 
revelations  made  by  some  of  these  mothers 
in  the  public  meetings,  things  they  have 
never  named  to  any  one  before,  would  al- 
most take  your  breath." 

At  another  time  she  wrote:  "When  I 
see  you  I  shall  tell  you  of  one  woman  I  met 
at  Sault  Sainte  Marie.  It  was  all  paid  for 


FOR   FARM   WOMEN  63 

by  just  that  one.  I  shall  never  forget  her 
beautiful  face  and  the  intense  earnestness 
of  it,  as  she  sat  on  the  front  seat  with  two 
children,  one  on  each  side  of  her,  with  their 
little  heads  in  her  lap,  fast  asleep.  She  had 
come  thirty  miles.  At  -  — ,  the  young 
ladies  from  the  high  school  came  into  my 
meeting.  I  think  what  I  said  was  a  revela- 
tion to  them.  I  talked  to  them  very  plainly 
about  young  men  and  the  kind  of  young 
people  they  should  associate  with.  They 
listened  beautifully.  I  also  talked  to  them 
about  being  good  to  their  mothers." 

Mrs.  Mayo's  topics,  added  as  the  work 
grew,  were:  "The  Well-bred  Child," 
"Home  Life  on  the  Farm,"  "Poultry 
Raising  for  the  Farmer's  Wife,"  "How  to 
Keep  the  Boys  on  the  Farm,"  "Mother  and 
the  School,"  "The  House  We  Live  In," 
"The  Unappreciated  Side  of  Farm  Life," 
"The  Mother's  Greatest  Needs,"  "Wife- 
hood  and  Motherhood,"  and  "Mother  and 
Children."  The  usefulness  of  the  Women's 
Sections  having  been  fully  established 
through  her  experience  with  them,  she  was 
consulted  as  to  the  extension  of  the  work, 
and  asked  to  assist  in  selecting  other  women 


64  ONE  WOMAN'S  WORK 

speakers.  With  her  keen  discernment  of 
character  and  clear  understanding  of  the 
need,  she  set  about  the  task  of  choosing 
women  who  would  fit  into  the  work,  and  the 
no  less  delicate  undertaking  of  securing 
their  consent  to  attempt  it  and  of  initiating 
them  into  their  duties.  Her  native  opti- 
mism regarding  the  powers  and  abilities  of 
her  friends  shone  out  here.  "Yes,  you  can; 
I  know  you  can,"  she  repeatedly  said  to  the 
timid  but  really  capable  person,  and  by 
this  confidence  she  helped  many  a  woman 
to  do  what  she  could  never  have  accom- 
plished without  such  assurance.  She  was 
generous  of  herself,  also,  that  those  in  whom 
she  believed  might  succeed.  At  one  time 
she  wrote  the  institute  management  a  note, 
which  ran:  "How  glad  I  am  Mrs.  -  -  is 
going  to  try  the  work.  I  know  that  she 
must  have  it  as  easy  as  possible,  and  if  I 
can  make  it  one  whit  easier  for  her  by  say- 
ing, 'Give  me  the  hardest,'  I  will  net  only 
say  it,  but  be  glad  to  take  it — such  trips  as 
to  -  — ,  for  instance,  or  any  others  where  it 
needs  strength  and  endurance.  I  am  well 
and  strong,  and  can  stand  it  just  as  well  as 
not;  anything,  so  she  may  bear  her  message 


FOR   FARM   WOMEN  65 

to   the   people,    for   she   has   a  wonderful 
message." 

To  Mrs.  Mayo  herself,  however,  was 
always  accorded  the  sovereign  place  in  the 
affections  of  the  women  who  attended  the 
institutes,  and  of  her  co-workers  as  well. 
"The  other  women  helped  us  and  we  liked 
them,  but  we  loved  Mrs.  Mayo;"  this 
was  the  frank  confession  made  to  another 
woman  who  came  later  upon  the  farmers' 
institute  force,  by  the  women  at  the  most 
remote  point  reached  by  the  work.  It 
chanced  that  Mrs.  Mayo  had  often  told  us 
of  this  particular  point,  a  spot  seemingly 
almost  inaccessible  at  the  time  of  year  insti- 
tutes are  held.  She  had  said  of  it:  "I  rode 
thirty  miles,  straight  into  the  pine  plains 
and  timber.  The  room  for  our  meeting 
was  a  little  cooped-up  place  and  very  dark. 
They  had  some  boards  for  seats  and  a  few 
chairs.  The  women  had  done  their  best  by 
bringing  a  good  many  fancy  articles,  with 
bread,  butter,  and  so  forth,  as  exhibits. 
Our  little  room  was  filled  full;  I  think  there 
were  forty  present.  One  woman  was  to 
read  a  paper.  She  had  come  twelve  miles 
with  her  four  little  children,  one  a  baby. 


66  ONE  WOMAN'S  WORK 

When  she  was  ready  to  read,  she  handed 
her  baby  to  a  woman  beside  her  and  read 
one  of  the  most  practical  papers  on  'A 
Mother's  Needs'  I  ever  heard;  then  she 
went  back  to  her  little  ones,  taking  the  baby 
again.  I  spoke  on  some  point  in  her  paper 
for  a  moment,  trying  to  impress  it  on  the 
audience,  and  shall  never  forget  her  reply. 
With  all  the  beauty  and  dignity  of  mother- 
hood, she  stood  there  with  her  baby  over 
her  shoulder,  patting  it  to  keep  it  quiet, 
expressing  her  deep  interest  in  the  work 
and  urging  that  it  be  continued." 

It  has  come  about  that  within  the  past 
few  weeks  I  have  been  a  guest  in  the  home 
of  the  woman  who  was  chairman  of  this 
remarkable  meeting.  Remarkable  it  was 
because  it  was  held  in  a  place  so  difficult  of 
access — positively  isolated  in  every  way. 
Isolated  it  still  is,  so  far  as  railroad  facilities 
are  concerned,  but  the  farm  homes  in  the 
region  round  about  the  village  where  this 
meeting  was  held  are  now  strung  on  tele- 
phone lines,  the  Grange  has  several  organ- 
izations on  the  oases  in  the  jack  pine  plains, 
and  the  roads  are  growing  better  every  year. 
I  visited  with  the  chairman  of  this  first 


FOR   FARM   WOMEN  67 

Women's  Section  while  she  finished  her 
morning's  work,  and  shall  repeat  here  what 
she  told  me,  illustrating,  as  it  does,  the 
simple  type  and  value  of  what  Mrs.  Mayo 
accomplished  multifold  times.  This  woman 
told  me  how  actually  shocked  she  had  been 
to  learn  that  she  had  been  appointed  chair- 
man of  the  forthcoming  Women's  Section. 
She  had  not  the  faintest  conception  of  what 
was  expected  of  her.  She  simply  felt  cer- 
tain she  could  not  do  it.  When  her  husband 
came  home  she  told  him  she  must  go  at 
once  to  see  the  president  of  the  institute. 
He  hitched  up  a  horse  for  her  and  she  drove 
several  miles,  arriving  a  little  before  noon 
at  the  home  of  the  president,  who  put  her 
horse  in  the  barn,  in  spite  of  her  protests 
that  she  had  come  only  upon  business. 
When  he  came  into  the  house,  she  told  him 
her  errand  —  she  had  come  to  resign  as 
chairman  of  the  Women's  Section.  He 
laughed  and  refused  to  listen;  she  remon- 
strated and  insisted,  but  it  was  of  no  avail. 
The  man  finally  quieted  her  fears  some- 
what by  promising  to  assist  her  in  every 
way,  and  so  the  matter  was  left. 

"Soon  after,   I   received  a  letter  from 


68  ONE  WOMAN'S  WORK 

Mrs.  Mayo,"  my  informant  in  the  kitchen 
continued,  "and  she  explained  that  if  I 
would  arrange  for  some  music  and  see  that 
the  room  we  were  to  occupy  was  a  comfort- 
able one,  I  would  only  need  to  call  for  the 
music  and  introduce  her  to  the  women.  This 
looked  easy  enough,  and  I  thought  I  would 
do  the  best  I  could.  When  the  time  came, 
Mrs.  Mayo  helped  me,  and  every  one  was 
so  interested  and  nice  about  it  that  I  found 
it  was  not  so  impossible  after  all."  She 
pointed  out  to  me,  too,  the  place  where 
the  woman  lived  who  had  read  the  paper 
at  that  first  meeting  of  farm  women  among 
the  pine  plains  of  the  far  north — "the 
woman  who  had  come  twelve  miles  with 
her  four  little  ones,"  and  "stood  with 
her  baby  over  her  shoulder,  patting  it  to 
keep  it  quiet,"  while  she  told  what  a  help 
the  meeting  was  to  her. 

My  friend  told  me,  too,  of  her  own 
memory  of  Mrs.  Mayo,  after  all  these  years. 
"Some  way,"  she  said,  "we  felt  she  was  one 
of  us  and  knew  all  about  us.  Every  one  she 
met  she  left  a  friend."  "I  know,"  looked 
from  the  brown  eyes,  and  "I  understand," 
smiled  from  the  face,  ere  her  lips  had 


FOR  FARM   WOMEN  69 

framed  the  words  that  went  straight  to  their 
mark  and  convinced  of  sincerity  and  of 
experience  as  Mrs.  Mayo  took  on  herself 
the  burden  of  them  all.  "Virtue  literally 
seemed  to  go  out  from  her,  so  that  at  the 
close  of  an  address  she  would  be  weak  and 
exhausted,"  said  a  co-worker.  Indomitable 
in  her  faith  in  God  and  humanity,  she  shed 
confidence  and  stirred  impulses  to  stronger 
endeavor  for  righteousness  in  others  every- 
where. 

Even  women,  for  there  were  such,  who 
came  with  disapproval  in  their  hearts  for 
the  separate  Women's  Section,  almost  in- 
variably conceded  its  value  and  joined  in 
its  support.  Mrs.  Mayo  appreciated  such 
an  attitude  toward  her  work,  and  met  it  dis- 
creetly. An  incident  of  this  kind  she  was 
wont  to  tell  of  is  repeated  to  me  by  one  who 
recalls  her  love  of  a  joke  even  at  her  own 
expense.  "  I  must  tell  you  a  story,"  she  said, 
"that  is  too  good  to  keep.  We  were  to  have 
an  institute  at  -  — ,  and  the  meeting  was  to 
be  held  in  a  two-story  building,  the  ladies 
meeting  upstairs.  I  arrived  first  and  was 
sitting  by  a  big  stove  that  had  a  'jacket7 
around  it,  and,  through  a  register  in  the 


70  ONE  WOMAN'S  WORK 

floor,  helped  to  warm  the  room  above.  It 
was  a  very  cold  day  and  also  quite  stormy, 
suggestive  of  a  light  attendance.  After  a 
short  time  a  sleigh  was  driven  to  the  door 
and  some  one  helped  out  an  old  lady,  who 
came  in,  unwinding  the  wrappings  about 
her  head  as  she  entered.  Seeing  me,  she 
said,  'Don't  you  think  I  am  an  old  fool  to 
come  out  such  a  day  as  this  just  to  hear  a 
woman  speak?'  'Oh,'  I  said,  'I  think  you 
will  enjoy  it,'  and  began  to  help  her  take  off 
her  wraps.  'Well,  I  hope  so,  for  John  in- 
sisted on  my  coming,  telling  me  that  Mrs. 
Mayo  says  so  many  good  things  he  wanted 
me  to  hear  her  talk;  but  I  don't  believe  in 
women  going  around  giving  lectures  and 
neglecting  things  in  their  own  homes.  I'll 
warrant  if  you  should  go  to  her  home  and 
look  under  her  beds  and  around  in  the  cor- 
ners, you  would  think  she  might  better  be 
at  home  than  going  around  telling  other 
folks  what  to  do.'  Others  began  to  arrive 
and  go  directly  upstairs,  and  the  old  lady 
inquired  if  the  meeting  was  not  to  be  held 
where  we  were.  I  told  her  the  other  ladies 
were  going  to  the  room  for  the  Women's 
Section,  and  that  when  she  was  warm  we 


FOR   FARM   WOMEN  Jl 

would  go  upstairs,  also.  'Well,  I  don't  want 
you  to  set  me  up  in  front  where  I  have  got 
to  look  at  her  all  the  time.  If  I  don't  like 
what  she  says,  I  want  to  be  where  I  can  look 
out  of  the  window.'  I  told  her  I  would  not 
put  her  in  a  front  seat,  but  I  was  quite  sure 
she  would  enjoy  the  meeting;  then,  thinking 
of  something  I  wished  to  jot  down,  I  took 
my  pencil  from  my  dress  and,  using  the 
window  sill  for  a  desk,  busied  myself  writ- 
ing. In  the  meantime,  the  old  lady  had  eyed 
me  very  closely  and  finally  said,  'Who  is 
this  I  have  been  talking  to — not  Mrs. 
Mayo?'  Seeing  me  smile,  she  exclaimed, 
'Oh,  Lord!  what  have  I  done!'  and  begged 
me  to  forgive  her,  saying  I  must  promise 
not  to  tell  John  or  she  would  never  hear  the 
last  of  it.  She  also  insisted  upon  going  up- 
stairs, where  she  took  a  front  seat." 

The  occurrence,  we  may  easily  believe, 
created  new  inspiration  in  the  speaker,  and, 
at  the  close  of  the  address,  the  dear  old  lady 
came  to  Mrs.  Mayo  and  thanked  her,  tell- 
ing her  how  glad  she  was  that  she  had  come 
and  again  begged  pardon  for  her  indiscreet 
criticism.  "But,"  added  Mrs.  Mayo,  "I 
made  about  as  bad  a  blunder  later  in  the 


72  ONE  WOMAN'S  WORK 

day,  when  quite  a  number  of  us  were  in- 
vited to  tea  by  a  former  neighbor  of  the  old 
lady.  At  the  tea  table  I  could  not  resist 
telling  of  her  expressions,  adding  that  I  had 
promised  not  to  tell  her  son  John.  Imme- 
diately one  of  the  guests  sprang  to  his  feet, 
clapping  his  hands,  and,  to  my  dismay,  I 
found  he  was  'son  John'  himself." 

The  Personal  Touch 

A  certain  small  Scotch  woman,  fine  of 
fiber,  set  in  the  lone  plain  country  and  too 
much  cumbered  for  her  strength,  who  was 
a  transformed  woman  from  the  hour  she 
met  Mrs.  Mayo,  said:  "Her  talk  to  the 
women  of  the  farm  was  an  inspiration. 
She  seemed  to  reach  the  inmost  soul,  to 
know  our  needs.  She  was  so  sincere  and 
earnest  in  every  thing  she  said  that  our 
hearts  went  out  to  her,  and  we  felt  we  had 
a  friend."  And  then  she  continued,  lov- 
ingly going  over  the  memory,  as  if  to  her- 
self:  "There  was  something  peculiar  in  the 
way  I  met  Mrs.  Mayo.  She  walked  right 
into  my  heart  the  first  time  I  ever  saw  and 
heard  her.  I  was  honored  by  having  her 
call  me  'friend.'  Mrs.  Mayo  was  very 


FOR   FARM   WOMEN  73 

unselfish.  If  she  met  people  whom  she 
thought  had  any  talents  at  all,  or  could  do 
any  good  whatever  in  the  world,  she  had 
the  faculty  of  bringing  out  whatever  best 
there  was  in  them." 

The  term  "peculiar"  has  been  used  time 
and  again  by  people  in  referring  to  their 
cordial  friendship  with  this  magnetic 
woman.  She  somehow  found  that  which 
no  one  else  had  seemed  to  discover  in  those 
women  whom  some  one  has  called  "  color- 
less." Having  found  something  real  in 
them,  she  made  the  most  of  it,  often  sur- 
prising no  one  else  so  much  as  the  woman 
concerning  whom  she  made  the  revelation. 
It  was  quite  likely  to  be  some  aptness  in 
the  woman's  boy  or  girl  that  she  told  of  to 
a  group  of  the  woman's  friends;  or  some 
ingenious  contrivance  this  woman  had  in 
her  housework,  enlarged  upon  to  the  credit 
of  the  inventor.  Mrs.  Mayo  thus  revealed 
the  woman  to  herself  and  to  her  family — 
which  latter,  occasionally,  was  more  to  the 
purpose.  Nor  was  her  influence  confined 
to  women.  She  was  a  constant  help  and 
inspiration  to  the  men  who  heard  and  knew 
her.  Said  one:  "I  can  never  repay  the  debt 


74  ONE  WOMAN'S  WORK 

I  owe  her  personally,  for  her  words  of  en- 
couragement, her  acute  intelligence,  her 
ready  sympathy,  her  belief  in  one's  best 
side,  were  sources  of  strength  to  me  for 
many  years.  Her  faith  in  men  and  women, 
her  love  for  them,  her  charity  for  their 
failings,  her  heroic  and  Christlike  spirit 
during  her  last  years,  when  sorrow  and 
suffering  came  to  her  sensitive  soul  in  a 
measure  running  over — all  these  are  an 
inspiration  to  us  all." 

Said  a  young  school  man — another  of 
"her  boys"-  -the  morning  after  her  funeral, 
"My  wife  and  I  never  went  to  her  home 
but  that  when  we  came  to  go  she  did  not 
bring  us  something — a  chicken,  a  box  of 
honey,  or  perhaps  we  would  find  a  basket 
of  apples,  new  potatoes,  or  other  good 
things  under  the  buggy  seat  when  we 
reached  home."  Had  he  thought  of  it,  he 
might  have  added  a  similar  testimony  as  to 
the  less  tangible  helps  this  friend  had  given 
him,  for  much  does  he  prize  the  counsel 
and  timely  advice  she  gave  him  freely  in  the 
beginning  of  his  career.  Perhaps  no  one 
has  crystallized  in  words  the  secret  of  this 
one  farm  woman's  influence  and  the  potency 


FOR  FARM   WOMEN  75 

of  her  life  work  so  perfectly  as  she  herself 
did  in  a  few  lines  in  one  of  the  last  personal 
messages  that  came  from  her  pen:  "I  love 
everybody  so  much !  I  have  wanted  to  help 
people  to  be  kinder,  truer,  sweeter.  And 
there  is  so  much  to  do!" 

System  and  Concentration 

But  other  women  have  loved  and  coun- 
seled and  encouraged.  True,  and  this  one 
is  pictured  only  because  by  her  persistent 
activity  and  intelligent  direction  she  was 
able  to  cast  her  impress  so  deeply  on  the 
lives  of  people  who  had  been  overlooked. 
She  was  consumed  by  a  passion  for  human- 
ity, but  she  was  wise  enough  to  try  to  help 
humanity  from  just  where  she  herself  stood. 
In  every  movement  she  put  her  hand  to  she 
sought  to  wrest  from  it  a  blessing  for  coun- 
try people.  For  this  reason,  the  Grange's 
open  door,  in  her  sight,  was  the  Red  Sea 
held  back  while  farmers'  wives  went  out 
from  a  service  of  bondage.  It  was  not  so 
much  a  bondage  of  hard  work  she  rebelled 
against,  as  of  solitude  and  mental  inactivity. 
She  sought  to  put  new  incentives  into  the 
necessary  responsibilities  and  duties  that 


76  ONE  WOMAN'S  WORK 

come  to  every  farmer  and  his  family.  Be- 
cause of  her  alert,  trained  mind  and  mag- 
netic ability  to  organize  and  inspire  un- 
assuming, hesitating  persons,  she  was  able 
to  achieve  much  where  others  would  have 
failed. 

In  the  broadening  of  the  home  life  about 
her  into  the  wide,  homelike  neighborhood 
circle,  there  must  of  necessity  have  been  a 
warm,  rich  love  note  answering  to  the  clear, 
discreet  call  of  man's  more  reasoning  sense. 
Here  Mrs.  Mayo  found  vent  for  the  forces 
that  surged  through  her.  She  early  over- 
came the  desire  to  yield  to  passing  moods, 
to  shirk,  or  to  magnify  physical  ailments. 
She  learned  true  values.  She  had  no  time 
for  melancholy.  She  breathed  the  ozone  of 
all  breezes  that  freshened  her  mental  and 
moral  atmosphere.  She  sought  to  feel  the 
throb  of  activity  everywhere,  in  science, 
mechanics,  art,  drama,  music,  and  worka- 
day things.  She  rejoiced  to  meet  great- 
brained  men  and  large-hearted  women 
whose  views  towered  above  the  limited 
horizon  of  ordinary  people.  Practical  use- 
fulness was  a  cogent  incentive  with  her  to 
subordinate  self  and  open  avenues  to  larger 


FOR   FARM   WOMEN  77 

sympathies  and  closer  relations  with  others. 
What  she  was,  from  all  this,  she  must,  per- 
force, give  out  in  unstinted  measure  to  her 
great  farm  sisterhood. 

Her  earlier  interest  and  addresses  were 
marked  by  aspirations  and  admonitions  for 
a  quickened  mental  life,  strong  and  con- 
tagious in  enthusiasm ;  her  later,  by  a  notice- 
able deepening  of  the  affectional  life,  as 
shown  by  her  constant  counseling  for  gen- 
tleness of  speech,  purity  of  life,  and  charity 
of  judgment,  crowned  by  her  unflinching 
sweetness  in  devotion  to  the  uttermost  duty 
as  it  was  revealed  to  her. 

Behind  the  Curtain 

In  the  midst  of  the  ever  widening  circle 
of  her  deepening  power,  and  the  seeming 
urgent  need  for  it  in  her  own  and  other 
states,  she  was  summoned  to  a  more  in- 
terior service.  Her  only  daughter,  the 
delight,  pride,  and  fairly  the  lifeblood  of 
the  mother,  was  stricken  with  an  illness, 
agonizing  in  pain  and  baffling  the  skill  of 
medicine  and  surgery.  For  five  years  the 
smitten  mother's  face  was  set  full  to  the  blast, 
yet  without  faltering.  "  Because  /  know  my 


78  ONE  WOMAN'S  WORK 

Pilot''  she  said,  "it  will  be  all  right,  some- 
time, somewhere." 

Bravely,  with  an  indomitable  courage 
native  to  so  noble  a  nature  as  hers,  she  stood 
day  and  night  at  the  post  of  her  nearest 
duty.  For  more  than  a  year,  without  a  sign 
to  others,  she  fought  the  inroads  upon  her- 
self of  an  incurable  disease,  giving  up  her 
place  at  her  daughter's  bedside  only  three 
weeks  before  the  transition  came  to  her  own 
dauntless  spirit,  April  21,  1903. 

Through  all  her  life  ran  a  recognition 
that  death  is  but  an  incident  in  life,  that 
one's  work  is  not  bounded  by  time,  but 
that  what  is  begun  here  is  continued  There. 
How  beautifully  such  confidence  in  the  one- 
ness of  life  reconciles  the  otherwise  irrecon- 
cilable! Thus  lived  for  and  thus  has  gone 
before  the  farm  women  of  every  section 
one  who  was  affectionately  known  as 
"Mother  Mayo."  Not  by  her  many  years 
was  the  title  won,  but  by  the  shedding 
abroad  of  a  sympathetic,  dignified  woman- 
liness that  constantly  suggested  the  highest 
type  of  motherhood. 


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